him to her breast. "When thou art one-half as fair we will marry
thee to the youngest daughter of a king, and thou shalt ride
great elephants."

Mowgli could not understand one word in three of the talk here;
the warm milk was taking effect on him after his long run, so he
curled up and in a minute was deep asleep, and Messua put the
hair back from his eyes, threw a cloth over him, and was happy.
Jungle-fashion, he slept out the rest of that night and all the
next day; for his instincts, which never wholly slept, warned
him there was nothing to fear. He waked at last with a bound
that shook the hut, for the cloth over his face made him dream
of traps; and there he stood, his hand on his knife, the sleep
all heavy in his rolling eyes, ready for any fight.

Messua laughed, and set the evening meal before him. There were
only a few coarse cakes baked over the smoky fire, some rice,
and a lump of sour preserved tamarinds--just enough to go on
with till he could get to his evening kill. The smell of the dew
in the marshes made him hungry and restless. He wanted to finish
his spring running, but the child insisted on sitting in his
arms, and Messua would have it that his long, blue-black hair
must he combed out. So she sang, as she combed, foolish little
baby-songs, now calling Mowgli her son, and now begging him to
give some of his jungle power to the child. The hut door was
closed, but Mowgli heard a sound he knew well, and saw Messua's
jaw drop with horror as a great gray paw came under the bottom
of the door, and Gray Brother outside whined a muffled and
penitent whine of anxiety and fear.

"Out and wait! Ye would not come when I called," said Mowgli
in Jungle-talk, without turning his head, and the great gray
paw disappeared.

"Do not--do not bring thy--thy servants with thee," said Messua.
"I--we have always lived at peace with the Jungle."

"It is peace," said Mowgli, rising. "Think of that night on the
road to Khanhiwara. There were scores of such folk before thee
and behind thee. But I see that even in springtime the Jungle
People do not always forget. Mother, I go."

Messua drew aside humbly--he was indeed a wood-god, she thought;
but as his hand was on the door the mother in her made her throw
her arms round Mowgli's neck again and again.

"Come back!" she whispered. "Son or no son, come back, for I
love thee--Look, he too grieves."

The child was crying because the man with the shiny knife was
going away.

"Come back again," Messua repeated. "By night or by day this
door is never shut to thee."

Mowgli's throat worked as though the cords in it were being
pulled, and his voice seemed to be dragged from it as he
answered, "I will surely come back."

"And now," he said, as he put by the head of the fawning wolf on
the threshold, "I have a little cry against thee, Gray Brother.
Why came ye not all four when I called so long ago?"

"So long ago? It was but last night. I--we--were singing in
the Jungle the new songs, for this is the Time of New Talk.
Rememberest thou?"

"Truly, truly."

"And as soon as the songs were sung," Gray Brother went on
earnestly, "I followed thy trail. I ran from all the others and
followed hot-foot. But, O Little Brother, what hast THOU done,
eating and sleeping with the Man-Pack?"

"If ye had come when I called, this had never been," said
Mowgli, running much faster.

"And now what is to be?" said Gray Brother. Mowgli was going to
answer when a girl in a white cloth came down some path that led
from the outskirts of the village. Gray Brother dropped out of
sight at once, and Mowgli backed noiselessly into a field of
high-springing crops. He could almost have touched her with
his hand when the warm, green stalks closed before his face
and he disappeared like a ghost. The girl screamed, for she
thought she had seen a spirit, and then she gave a deep sigh.
Mowgli parted the stalks with his hands and watched her till
she was out of sight.

"And now I do not know," he said, sighing in his turn. "WHY did
ye not come when I called?"

"We follow thee--we follow thee," Gray Brother mumbled, licking
at Mowgli's heel. "We follow thee always, except in the Time of
the New Talk."

"And would ye follow me to the Man-Pack?" Mowgli whispered.

"Did I not follow thee on the night our old Pack cast thee out?
Who waked thee lying among the crops?"



<< previous page | next page >>

Jump to page: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45 | 46 | 47 | 48 | 49 | 50 | 51 | 52 | 53 | 54 | 55 | 56 | 57 | 58 | 59 | 60 | 61 | 62 | 63 | 64 | 65 | 66 | 67 | 68 | 69 | 70 | 71 | 72 | 73 | 74 |