follow.' Then we of the jungle said, 'What is Fear?' And Tha
said, 'Seek till ye find.' So we went up and down the Jungle
seeking for Fear, and presently the buffaloes----"

"Ugh!" said Mysa, the leader of the buffaloes, from their
sand-bank.

"Yes, Mysa, it was the buffaloes. They came back with the news
that in a cave in the Jungle sat Fear, and that he had no hair,
and went upon his hind legs. Then we of the Jungle followed the
herd till we came to that cave, and Fear stood at the mouth of
it, and he was, as the buffaloes had said, hairless, and he
walked upon his hinder legs. When he saw us he cried out, and
his voice filled us with the fear that we have now of that
voice when we hear it, and we ran away, tramping upon and
tearing each other because we were afraid. That night, so it
was told to me, we of the Jungle did not lie down together as
used to be our custom, but each tribe drew off by itself--the
pig with the pig, the deer with the deer; horn to horn, hoof to
hoof,--like keeping to like, and so lay shaking in the Jungle.

"Only the First of the Tigers was not with us, for he was still
hidden in the marshes of the North, and when word was brought
to him of the Thing we had seen in the cave, he said. 'I will
go to this Thing and break his neck.' So he ran all the night
till he came to the cave; but the trees and the creepers on his
path, remembering the order that Tha had given, let down their
branches and marked him as he ran, drawing their fingers across
his back, his flank, his forehead, and his jowl. Wherever they
touched him there was a mark and a stripe upon his yellow hide.
AND THOSE STRIPES DO THIS CHILDREN WEAR TO THIS DAY! When he
came to the cave, Fear, the Hairless One, put out his hand and
called him 'The Striped One that comes by night,' and the First
of the Tigers was afraid of the Hairless One, and ran back to
the swamps howling."

Mowgli chuckled quietly here, his chin in the water.

"So loud did he howl that Tha heard him and said, 'What is the
sorrow?' And the First of the Tigers, lifting up his muzzle to
the new-made sky, which is now so old, said: 'Give me back my
power, O Tha. I am made ashamed before all the Jungle, and I
have run away from a Hairless One, and he has called me a
shameful name.' 'And why?' said Tha. 'Because I am smeared with
the mud of the marshes,' said the First of the Tigers. 'Swim,
then, and roll on the wet grass, and if it be mud it will wash
away,' said Tha; and the First of the Tigers swam, and rolled
and rolled upon the grass, till the Jungle ran round and round
before his eyes, but not one little bar upon all his hide was
changed, and Tha, watching him, laughed. Then the First of the
Tigers said: 'What have I done that this comes to me?'
Tha said, 'Thou hast killed the buck, and thou hast let Death
loose in the Jungle, and with Death has come Fear, so that the
people of the Jungle are afraid one of the other, as thou art
afraid of the Hairless One.' The First of the Tigers said,
'They will never fear me, for I knew them since the beginning.'
Tha said, 'Go and see.' And the First of the Tigers ran to and
fro, calling aloud to the deer and the pig and the sambhur and
the porcupine and all the Jungle Peoples, and they all ran away
from him who had been their judge, because they were afraid.

"Then the First of the Tigers came back, and his pride was
broken in him, and, beating his head upon the ground, he tore up
the earth with all his feet and said: 'Remember that I was once
the Master of the Jungle. Do not forget me, O Tha! Let my
children remember that I was once without shame or fear!'
And Tha said: 'This much I will do, because thou and I together
saw the Jungle made. For one night in each year it shall be as
it was before the buck was killed--for thee and for thy
children. In that one night, if ye meet the Hairless One--and
his name is Man--ye shall not be afraid of him, but he shall he
afraid of you, as though ye were judges of the Jungle and
masters of all things. Show him mercy in that night of his
fear, for thou hast known what Fear is.'

"Then the First of the Tigers answered, 'I am content';
but when next he drank he saw the black stripes upon his flank
and his side, and he remembered the name that the Hairless One
had given him, and he was angry. For a year he lived in the
marshes waiting till Tha should keep his promise. And upon a
night when the jackal of the Moon [the Evening Star] stood
clear of the Jungle, he felt that his Night was upon him,
and he went to that cave to meet the Hairless One. Then it
happened as Tha promised, for the Hairless One fell down before
him and lay along the ground, and the First of the Tigers
struck him and broke his back, for he thought that there was
but one such Thing in the Jungle, and that he had killed Fear.
Then, nosing above the kill, he heard Tha coming down from the
woods of the North, and presently the voice of the First of the
Elephants, which is the voice that we hear now----"

The thunder was rolling up and down the dry, scarred hills, but
it brought no rain--only heat--lightning that flickered along
the ridges--and Hathi went on: "THAT was the voice he heard,
and it said: 'Is this thy mercy?' The First of the Tigers
licked his lips and said: 'What matter? I have killed Fear.'
And Tha said: 'O blind and foolish! Thou hast untied the feet
of Death, and he will follow thy trail till thou diest.
Thou hast taught Man to kill!'



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