usual way, when Bagheera put out a paddy paw and pulled him
over backward into the water.

"Worse and worse," said the Black Panther, as the boy rose
spluttering. "First Baloo is to be skinned, and now he is a
cocoanut. Be careful that he does not do what the ripe
cocoanuts do."

"And what is that?" said Mowgli, off his guard for the minute,
though that is one of the oldest catches in the Jungle.

"Break thy head," said Bagheera quietly, pulling him
under again.

"It is not good to make a jest of thy teacher," said the bear,
when Mowgli had been ducked for the third time.

"Not good! What would ye have? That naked thing running to
and fro makes a monkey-jest of those who have once been good
hunters, and pulls the best of us by the whiskers for sport."
This was Shere Khan, the Lame Tiger, limping down to the water.
He waited a little to enjoy the sensation he made among the
deer on the opposite to lap, growling: "The jungle has become a
whelping-ground for naked cubs now. Look at me, Man-cub!"

Mowgli looked--stared, rather--as insolently as he knew how,
and in a minute Shere Khan turned away uneasily. "Man-cub this,
and Man-cub that," he rumbled, going on with his drink, "the
cub is neither man nor cub, or he would have been afraid. Next
season I shall have to beg his leave for a drink. Augrh!"

"That may come, too," said Bagheera, looking him steadily
between the eyes. "That may come, too--Faugh, Shere Khan!--what
new shame hast thou brought here?"

The Lame Tiger had dipped his chin and jowl in the water, and
dark, oily streaks were floating from it down-stream.

"Man!" said Shere Khan coolly, "I killed an hour since."
He went on purring and growling to himself.

The line of beasts shook and wavered to and fro, and a whisper
went up that grew to a cry. "Man! Man! He has killed Man!"
Then all looked towards Hathi, the wild elephant, but he seemed
not to hear. Hathi never does anything till the time comes,
and that is one of the reasons why he lives so long.

"At such a season as this to kill Man! Was no other game
afoot?" said Bagheera scornfully, drawing himself out of the
tainted water, and shaking each paw, cat-fashion, as he did so.

"I killed for choice--not for food." The horrified whisper
began again, and Hathi's watchful little white eye cocked
itself in Shere Khan's direction. "For choice," Shere Khan
drawled. "Now come I to drink and make me clean again. Is
there any to forbid?"

Bagheera's back began to curve like a bamboo in a high wind,
but Hathi lifted up his trunk and spoke quietly.

"Thy kill was from choice?" he asked; and when Hathi asks a
question it is best to answer.

"Even so. It was my right and my Night. Thou knowest, O Hathi."
Shere Khan spoke almost courteously.

"Yes, I know," Hathi answered; and, after a little silence,
"Hast thou drunk thy fill?"

"For to-night, yes."

"Go, then. The river is to drink, and not to defile. None but
the Lame Tiger would so have boasted of his right at this
season when--when we suffer together--Man and Jungle People
alike." Clean or unclean, get to thy lair, Shere Khan!"

The last words rang out like silver trumpets, and Hathi's three
sons rolled forward half a pace, though there was no need.
Shere Khan slunk away, not daring to growl, for he knew--what
every one else knows--that when the last comes to the last,
Hathi is the Master of the Jungle.

"What is this right Shere Khan speaks of?" Mowgli whispered in
Bagheera's ear. "To kill Man is always, shameful. The Law says
so. And yet Hathi says----"

"Ask him. I do not know, Little Brother. Right or no right, if
Hathi had not spoken I would have taught that lame butcher his
lesson. To come to the Peace Rock fresh from a kill of Man--and
to boast of it--is a jackal's trick. Besides, he tainted the
good water."

Mowgli waited for a minute to pick up his courage, because no
one cared to address Hathi directly, and then he cried: "What
is Shere Khan's right, O Hathi?" Both banks echoed his words,
for all the People of the Jungle are intensely curious, and
they had just seen something that none except Baloo, who looked
very thoughtful, seemed to understand.

"It is an old tale," said Hathi; "a tale older than the Jungle.


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