"And what more?" said Mowgli.

"As much good ground as I can walk over in two nights from the
east to the west, and from the north to the south as much as I
can walk over in three nights, the Jungle took. We let in the
Jungle upon five villages; and in those villages, and in their
lands, the grazing-ground and the soft crop-grounds, there is
not one man to-day who takes his food from the ground. That was
the Sack of the Fields of Bhurtpore, which I and my three sons
did; and now I ask, Man-cub, how the news of it came to thee?"
said Hathi.

"A man told me, and now I see even Buldeo can speak truth.
It was well done, Hathi with the white mark; but the second time
it shall be done better, for the reason that there is a man to
direct. Thou knowest the village of the Man-Pack that cast me
out? They are idle, senseless, and cruel; they play with their
mouths, and they do not kill the weaker for food, but for sport.
When they are full-fed they would throw their own breed into the
Red Flower. This I have seen. It is not well that they should
live here any more. I hate them!"

"Kill, then," said the youngest of Hathi's three sons, picking
up a tuft of grass, dusting it against his fore-legs, and
throwing it away, while his little red eyes glanced furtively
from side to side.

"What good are white bones to me?" Mowgli answered angrily.
"Am I the cub of a wolf to play in the sun with a raw head?
I have killed Shere Khan, and his hide rots on the Council Rock;
but--but I do not know whither Shere Khan is gone, and my
stomach is still empty. Now I will take that which I can see
and touch. Let in the Jungle upon that village, Hathi!"

Bagheera shivered, and cowered down. He could understand, if the
worst came to the worst, a quick rush down the village street,
and a right and left blow into a crowd, or a crafty killing of
men as they ploughed in the twilight; but this scheme for
deliberately blotting out an entire village from the eyes of man
and beast frightened him. Now he saw why Mowgli had sent for
Hathi. No one but the long-lived elephant could plan and carry
through such a war.

"Let them run as the men ran from the fields of Bhurtpore,
till we have the rain-water for the only plough, and the noise
of the rain on the thick leaves for the pattering of their
spindles--till Bagheera and I lair in the house of the Brahmin,
and the buck drink at the tank behind the temple! Let in the
Jungle, Hathi!"

"But I--but we have no quarrel with them, and it needs the red
rage of great pain ere we tear down the places where men sleep,"
said Hathi doubtfully.

"Are ye the only eaters of grass in the Jungle? Drive in your
peoples. Let the deer and the pig and the nilghai look to it.
Ye need never show a hand's-breadth of hide till the fields are
naked. Let in the Jungle, Hathi!"

"There will be no killing? My tusks were red at the Sack of the
Fields of Bhurtpore, and I would not wake that smell again."

"Nor I. I do not wish even their bones to lie on the clean
earth. Let them go and find a fresh lair. They cannot stay here.
I have seen and smelled the blood of the woman that gave me
food--the woman whom they would have killed but for me. Only the
smell of the new grass on their door-steps can take away that
smell. It burns in my mouth. Let in the Jungle, Hathi!"

"Ah!" said Hathi. "So did the scar of the stake burn on my hide
till we watched the villages die under in the spring growth. Now
I see. Thy war shall he our war. We will let in the jungle!"

Mowgli had hardly time to catch his breath--he was shaking all
over with rage and hate before the place where the elephants had
stood was empty, and Bagheera was looking at him with terror.

"By the Broken Lock that freed me!" said the Black Panther at
last. "Art THOU the naked thing I spoke for in the Pack when all
was young? Master of the Jungle, when my strength goes, speak
for me--speak for Baloo--speak for us all! We are cubs before
thee! Snapped twigs under foot! Fawns that have lost their doe!"

The idea of Bagheera being a stray fawn upset Mowgli altogether,
and he laughed and caught his breath, and sobbed and laughed
again, till he had to jump into a pool to make himself stop.
Then he swam round and round, ducking in and out of the bars of
the moonlight like the frog, his namesake.

By this time Hathi and his three sons had turned, each to one
point of the compass, and were striding silently down the
valleys a mile away. They went on and on for two days' march--
that is to say, a long sixty miles--through the Jungle; and
every step they took, and every wave of their trunks, was known
and noted and talked over by Mang and Chil and the Monkey People
and all the birds. Then they began to feed, and fed quietly for
a week or so. Hathi and his sons are like Kaa, the Rock Python.
They never hurry till they have to.

At the end of that time--and none knew who had started it--a


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