She was older, and her hair was gray, but her eyes and her voice
had not changed. Woman-like, she expected to find Mowgli where
she had left him, and her eyes travelled upward in a puzzled way
from his chest to his head, that touched the top of the door.

"My son," she stammered; and then, sinking to his feet: "But it
is no longer my son. It is a Godling of the Woods! Ahai!"

As he stood in the red light of the oil-lamp, strong, tall,
and beautiful, his long black hair sweeping over his shoulders,
the knife swinging at his neck, and his head crowned with a
wreath of white jasmine, he might easily have been mistaken for
some wild god of a jungle legend. The child half asleep on a cot
sprang up and shrieked aloud with terror. Messua turned to
soothe him, while Mowgli stood still, looking in at the water-
jars and the cooking-pots, the grain-bin, and all the other
human belongings that he found himself remembering so well.

"What wilt thou eat or drink?" Messua murmured. "This is all
thine. We owe our lives to thee. But art thou him I called
Nathoo, or a Godling, indeed?"

"I am Nathoo," said Mowgli, "I am very far from my own place.
I saw this light, and came hither. I did not know thou
wast here."

"After we came to Khanhiwara," Messua said timidly, "the English
would have helped us against those villagers that sought to burn
us. Rememberest thou?"

"Indeed, I have not forgotten."

"But when the English Law was made ready, we went to the village
of those evil people, and it was no more to be found."

"That also I remember," said Mowgli, with a quiver of
his nostril.

"My man, therefore, took service in the fields, and at last--
for, indeed, he was a strong man--we held a little land here.
It is not so rich as the old village, but we do not need much--
we two."

"Where is he the man that dug in the dirt when he was afraid on
that night?"

"He is dead--a year."

"And he?" Mowgli pointed to the child.

"My son that was born two Rains ago. If thou art a Godling,
give him the Favour of the Jungle, that he may be safe among
thy--thy people, as we were safe on that night."

She lifted up the child, who, forgetting his fright, reached out
to play with the knife that hung on Mowgli's chest, and Mowgli
put the little fingers aside very carefully.

"And if thou art Nathoo whom the tiger carried away," Messua
went on, choking, "he is then thy younger brother. Give him an
elder brother's blessing."

"Hai-mai! What do I know of the thing called a blessing?
I am neither a Godling nor his brother, and--O mother, mother,
my heart is heavy in me." He shivered as he set down the child.

"Like enough," said Messua, bustling among the cooking-pots.
"This comes of running about the marshes by night.
Beyond question, the fever had soaked thee to the marrow."
Mowgli smiled a little at the idea of anything in the Jungle
hurting him. "I will make a fire, and thou shalt drink warm
milk. Put away the jasmine wreath: the smell is heavy in so
small a place."

Mowgli sat down, muttering, with his face in his hands.
All manner of strange feelings that he had never felt before
were running over him, exactly as though he had been poisoned,
and he felt dizzy and a little sick. He drank the warm milk in
long gulps, Messua patting him on the shoulder from time to
time, not quite sure whether he were her son Nathoo of the long
ago days, or some wonderful Jungle being, but glad to feel that
he was at least flesh and blood.

"Son," she said at last,--her eyes were full of pride,--
"have any told thee that thou art beautiful beyond all men?"

"Hah?" said Mowgli, for naturally he had never heard anything of
the kind. Messua laughed softly and happily. The look in his
face was enough for her.

"I am the first, then? It is right, though it comes seldom,
that a mother should tell her son these good things. Thou art
very beautiful. Never have I looked upon such a man."

Mowgli twisted his head and tried to see over his own hard
shoulder, and Messua laughed again so long that Mowgli,
not knowing why, was forced to laugh with her, and the child
ran from one to the other, laughing too.

"Nay, thou must not mock thy brother," said Messua, catching


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