passed not five minutes before the bark would be stripped and
chiselled with the stroke of some great taloned paw. The more
they kept to their village, the bolder grew the wild things that
gambolled and bellowed on the grazing-grounds by the Waingunga.
They had no time to patch and plaster the rear walls of the
empty byres that backed on to the Jungle; the wild pig trampled
them down, and the knotty-rooted vines hurried after and threw
their elbows over the new-won ground, and the coarse grass
bristled behind the vines like the lances of a goblin army
following a retreat. The unmarried men ran away first, and
carried the news far and near that the village was doomed.
Who could fight, they said, against the Jungle, or the Gods of
the Jungle, when the very village cobra had left his hole in the
platform under the peepul-tree? So their little commerce with
the outside world shrunk as the trodden paths across the open
grew fewer and fainter. At last the nightly trumpetings of Hathi
and his three sons ceased to trouble them; for they had no more
to be robbed of. The crop on the ground and the seed in the
ground had been taken. The outlying fields were already losing
their shape, and it was time to throw themselves on the charity
of the English at Khanhiwara.

Native fashion, they delayed their departure from one day to
another till the first Rains caught them and the unmended roofs
let in a flood, and the grazing-ground stood ankle deep, and all
life came on with a rush after the heat of the summer. Then they
waded out--men, women, and children--through the blinding hot
rain of the morning, but turned naturally for one farewell look
at their homes.

They heard, as the last burdened family filed through the gate,
a crash of falling beams and thatch behind the walls. They saw a
shiny, snaky black trunk lifted for an instant, scattering
sodden thatch. It disappeared, and there was another crash,
followed by a squeal. Hathi had been plucking off the roofs of
the huts as you pluck water-lilies, and a rebounding beam had
pricked him. He needed only this to unchain his full strength,
for of all things in the Jungle the wild elephant enraged is the
most wantonly destructive. He kicked backward at a mud wall that
crumbled at the stroke, and, crumbling, melted to yellow mud
under the torrent of rain. Then he wheeled and squealed, and
tore through the narrow streets, leaning against the huts right
and left, shivering the crazy doors, and crumpling up the caves;
while his three sons raged behind as they had raged at the Sack
of the Fields of Bhurtpore.

"The Jungle will swallow these shells," said a quiet voice in
the wreckage. "It is the outer wall that must lie down," and
Mowgli, with the rain sluicing over his bare shoulders and arms,
leaped back from a wall that was settling like a tired buffalo.

"All in good time," panted Hathi. "Oh, but my tusks were red
at Bhurtpore; To the outer wall, children! With the head!
Together! Now!"

The four pushed side by side; the outer wall bulged, split, and
fell, and the villagers, dumb with horror, saw the savage,
clay-streaked heads of the wreckers in the ragged gap. Then they
fled, houseless and foodless, down the valley, as their village,
shredded and tossed and trampled, melted behind them.

A month later the place was a dimpled mound, covered with soft,
green young stuff; and by the end of the Rains there was the
roaring jungle in full blast on the spot that had been under
plough not six months before.


MOWGLI'S SONG AGAINST PEOPLE

I will let loose against you the fleet-footed vines--
I will call in the Jungle to stamp out your lines!
The roofs shall fade before it,
The house-beams shall fall,
And the Karela, the bitter Karela,
Shall cover it all!

In the gates of these your councils my people shall sing,
In the doors of these your garners the Bat-folk shall cling;
And the snake shall be your watchman,
By a hearthstone unswept;
For the Karela, the bitter Karela,
Shall fruit where ye slept!

Ye shall not see my strikers; ye shall hear them and guess;
By night, before the moon-rise, I will send for my cess,
And the wolf shall he your herdsman
By a landmark removed,
For the Karela, the bitter Karela,
Shall seed where ye loved!

I will reap your fields before you at the hands of a host;
Ye shall glean behind my reapers, for the bread that is lost,
And the deer shall be your oxen
By a headland untilled,
For the Karela, the bitter Karela,
Shall leaf where ye build!

I have untied against you the club-footed vines,
I have sent in the Jungle to swamp out your lines.
The trees--the trees are on you!


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