The Jungle Book

, and it is un­sports­man­like to touch him. They say too—and it is true—that man-eaters be­come mangy, and lose their teeth.
The purr grew louder, and ended in the full-throated “Aaarh!” of the tiger’s charge.
Then there was a howl—an untiger­ish howl—from Shere Khan. “He has missed,” said Mother Wolf. “What is it?”
Father Wolf ran out a few paces and heard Shere Khan mut­ter­ing and mum­bling sav­agely, as he tum­bled about in the scrub.
“The fool has had no more sense than to jump at a wood­cut­ters’ camp­fi

But no sooner had he walked to the city wall than the mon­keys pulled him back, telling him that he did not know how happy he was, and pinch­ing him to make him grate­ful. He set his teeth and said noth­ing, but went with the shout­ing mon­keys to a ter­race above the red sand­stone reser­voirs that were half full of rain­wa­ter. There was a ru­ined sum­mer­house of white mar­ble in the cen­ter of the ter­race, built for queens dead a hun­dred years ago. The domed roof had half fallen in and blocked up the un­der­ground pas­sage from the palace by which the queens used to en­ter; but the walls were made of screens of mar­ble trac­ery—beau­ti­ful, milk-white fret­work, set with agates and cor­nelians and jasper and lapis lazuli, and as the moon came up be­hind the hill it shone through the open­work, cast­ing shad­ows on the ground like black-vel­vet em­broi­dery.

It was seven o’clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day’s rest, scratched him­self, yawned, and spread out his paws one af­ter the other to get rid of the sleepy feel­ing in the tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped across her four tum­bling, squeal­ing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. “Au­grh!” said Father Wolf, “it is time to hunt again”; and he was go­ing to spring down­hill when a lit­tle shadow with a bushy tail crossed the thresh­old and whined: “Good luck go with you, O Chief of the Wolves; and good luck and strong white teeth go with the no­ble chil­dren, that they may never for­get the hun­gry in this world.”

I have no gift of words, but I speak the truth. Let him run with the Pack, and be en­tered with the oth­ers. I my­self will teach him.”

It was the jackal—Tabaqui, the Dish-licker—and the wolves of In­dia de­spise Tabaqui be­cause he runs about mak­ing mis­chief, and telling tales, and eat­ing rags and pieces of leather from the vil­lage rub­bish-heaps. They are afraid of him too, be­cause Tabaqui, more than any­one else in the jun­gle, is apt to go mad, and then he for­gets that he was ever afraid of any­one, and runs through the for­est bit­ing ev­ery­thing in his way. Even the tiger hides when lit­tle Tabaqui goes mad, for mad­ness is the most dis­grace­ful thing that can over­take a wild crea­ture. We call it hy­dropho­bia, but they call it de­wa­nee—the mad­ness—and run.

mon­keys called the place their city, and pre­tended to de­spise the Jun­gle Peo­ple be­cause they lived in the for­est. And yet they never knew what the build­ings were made for nor how to use them. They would sit in cir­cles on the hall of the king’s coun­cil-cham­ber, and scratch for fleas and pre­tend to be men; or they would run in and out of the roof­less houses and col­lect pieces of plas­ter and old bricks i

called me speck­led frog.”
“

have seen Mowgli among the Ban­dar-log. He bade me tell you. I watched. The Ban­dar-log have taken him be­yond the river to the Mon­key City—to the Cold Lairs. They may stay there for a night, or ten nights, or an hour. I have told the bats to watch through the dark time. That is my mes­sage. Good hunt­ing, all you be­low!”

have heard now and again of such a thing, but never in our pack or in my time,

The rea­son the beasts give among them­selves is that Man is the weak­est and most de­fense­less of all liv­ing things, and it is un­sports­man­like to touch him. They say too—and it is true—that man-eaters be­come mangy, and lose their teeth.