"Ay, but again?"

"Have I not followed thee to-night? "

"Ay, but again and again, and it may be again, Gray Brother?"

Gray Brother was silent. When he spoke he growled to himself,
"The Black One spoke truth."

"And he said?"

"Man goes to Man at the last. Raksha, our mother, said----"

"So also said Akela on the night of Red Dog," Mowgli muttered.

"So also says Kaa, who is wiser than us all."

"What dost thou say, Gray Brother?"

"They cast thee out once, with bad talk. They cut thy mouth
with stones. They sent Buldeo to slay thee. They would have
thrown thee into the Red Flower. Thou, and not I, hast said
that they are evil and senseless. Thou, and not I--I follow
my own people--didst let in the Jungle upon them. Thou, and
not I, didst make song against them more bitter even than our
song against Red Dog."

"I ask thee what THOU sayest?"

They were talking as they ran. Gray Brother cantered on a while
without replying, and then he said,--between bound and bound as
it were,--"Man-cub--Master of the Jungle--Son of Raksha, Lair-
brother to me--though I forget for a little while in the spring,
thy trail is my trail, thy lair is my lair, thy kill is my kill,
and thy death-fight is my death-fight. I speak for the Three.
But what wilt thou say to the Jungle?"

"That is well thought. Between the sight and the kill it is not
good to wait. Go before and cry them all to the Council Rock,
and I will tell them what is in my stomach. But they may not
come--in the Time of New Talk they may forget me."

"Hast thou, then, forgotten nothing?" snapped Gray Brother over
his shoulder, as he laid himself down to gallop, and Mowgli
followed, thinking.

At any other season the news would have called all the Jungle
together with bristling necks, but now they were busy hunting
and fighting and killing and singing. From one to another Gray
Brother ran, crying, "The Master of the Jungle goes back to Man!
Come to the Council Rock." And the happy, eager People only
answered, "He will return in the summer heats. The Rains will
drive him to lair. Run and sing with us, Gray Brother."

"But the Master of the Jungle goes back to Man," Gray Brother
would repeat.

"Eee--Yoawa? Is the Time of New Talk any less sweet for that?"
they would reply. So when Mowgli, heavy-hearted, came up through
the well- remembered rocks to the place where he had been
brought into the Council, he found only the Four, Baloo, who was
nearly blind with age, and the heavy, cold-blooded Kaa coiled
around Akela's empty seat.

"Thy trail ends here, then, Manling?" said Kaa, as Mowgli threw
himself down, his face in his hands. "Cry thy cry. We be of one
blood, thou and I--man and snake together."

"Why did I not die under Red Dog?" the boy moaned. "My strength
is gone from me, and it is not any poison. By night and by day
I hear a double step upon my trail. When I turn my head it is as
though one had hidden himself from me that instant. I go to look
behind the trees and he is not there. I call and none cry again;
but it is as though one listened and kept back the answer. I lie
down, but I do not rest. I run the spring running, but I am not
made still. I bathe, but I am not made cool. The kill sickens
me, but I have no heart to fight except I kill. The Red Flower
is in my body, my bones are water--and--I know not what I know."

"What need of talk?" said Baloo slowly, turning his head to
where Mowgli lay. "Akela by the river said it, that Mowgli
should drive Mowgli back to the Man-Pack. I said it. But who
listens now to Baloo? Bagheera--where is Bagheera this night?--
he knows also. It is the Law."

"When we met at Cold Lairs, Manling, I knew it," said Kaa,
turning a little in his mighty coils. "Man goes to Man at the
last, though the Jungle does not cast him out."

The Four looked at one another and at Mowgli, puzzled
but obedient.

"The Jungle does not cast me out, then?" Mowgli stammered.

Gray Brother and the Three growled furiously, beginning,
"So long as we live none shall dare----" But Baloo checked them.

"I taught thee the Law. It is for me to speak," he said;
"and, though I cannot now see the rocks before me, I see far.
Little Frog, take thine own trail; make thy lair with thine own


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