All the Mowgli Stories (Macmillan Collector's Library)

‘I have surely eaten poison,’ he said in an awestricken voice. ‘It must be that carelessly I have eaten poison, and my strength is going from me. I was afraid—and yet it was not I that was afraid—Mowgli was afraid when the two wolves fought. Akela, or even Phao, would have silenced them; yet Mowgli was afraid. That is true sign I have eaten poison. . . . But what do they care in the Jungle? They sing and howl and fight, and run in companies under the moon, and I—Haimai!—I am dying in the marshes, of that poison which I have eaten.’ He was so sorry for himself that he nearly wept. ‘And after,’ he went on, ‘they will find me lying in the black water. Nay, I will go back to my own Jungle, and I will die upon the Council Rock, and Bagheera, whom I love, if he is not screaming in the valley—Bagheera, perhaps, may watch by what is left for a little, lest Chil use me as he used Akela.’

A large, warm tear splashed down on his knee, and, miserable as he was, Mowgli felt happy that he was so miserable, if you can understand that upside-down sort of happiness. ‘As Chil the Kite used Akela,’ he repeated, ‘on the night I saved the Pack from Red Dog.’ He was quiet for a little, thinking of the last words of the Lone Wolf, which you, of course, remember. ‘Now Akela said to me many foolish things before he died, for when we die our stomachs change. He said . . . None the less, I am of the Jungle!’

In his excitement, as he remembered the fight on Waingunga bank, he shouted the last words aloud, and a wild buffalo-cow among the reeds sprang to her knees, snorting, ‘Man!’

‘Uhh!’ said Mysa, the Wild Buffalo (Mowgli could hear him turn in his wallow), ‘that is no man. It is only the hairless wolf of the Seeonee Pack. On such nights runs he to and fro.’

‘Uhh!’ said the cow, dropping her head again to graze, ‘I thought it was Man.’

‘I say no. Oh, Mowgli, is it danger?’ lowed Mysa.

‘Oh, Mowgli, is it danger?’ the boy called back mockingly. ‘That is all Mysa thinks for: Is it danger? But for Mowgli, who goes to and fro in the Jungle by night, watching, what do ye care?’

‘How loud he cries!’ said the cow.

‘Thus do they cry,’ Mysa answered contemptuously, ‘who, having torn up the grass, know not how to eat it.’

‘For less than this,’ Mowgli groaned to himself,—‘for less than this even last Rains I had pricked Mysa out of his wallow, and ridden him through the swamp on a rush halter.’ He stretched a hand to break one of the feathery reeds, but drew it back with a sigh. Mysa went on steadily chewing the cud, and the long grass ripped where the cow grazed. ‘I will not die here,’ he said angrily. ‘Mysa, who is of one blood with Jacala and the pig, would see me. Let us go beyond the swamp and see what comes. Never have I run such a spring running—hot and cold together. Up, Mowgli!’

He could not resist the temptation of stealing across the reeds to Mysa and pricking him with the point of his knife. The great dripping bull broke out of his wallow like a shell exploding, while Mowgli laughed till he sat down.

‘Say now that the hairless wolf of the Seeonee Pack once herded thee, Mysa,’ he called.

‘Wolf! Thou?’ the bull snorted, stamping in the mud. ‘All the Jungle knows thou wast a herder of tame cattle—such a man’s brat as shouts in the dust by the crops yonder. Thou of the Jungle! What hunter would have crawled like a snake among the leeches, and for a muddy jest—a jackal’s jest—have shamed me before my cow? Come to firm ground, and I will—I will . . .’ Mysa frothed at the mouth, for Mysa has nearly the worst temper of any one in the Jungle.

Mowgli watched him puff and blow with eyes that never changed. When he could make himself heard through the spattering mud, he said: ‘What Man-Pack lair here by the marshes, Mysa? This is new Jungle to me.’

‘Go north, then,’ roared the angry bull, for Mowgli had pricked him rather sharply. ‘It was a naked cow-herd’s jest. Go and tell them at the village at the foot of the marsh.’

‘The Man-Pack do not love jungle-tales, nor do I think, Mysa, that a scratch more or less on thy hide is any matter for a council. But I will go and look at this village. Yes, I will go. Softly now. It is not every night that the Master of the Jungle comes to herd thee.’

He stepped out to the shivering ground on the edge of the marsh, well knowing that Mysa would never charge over it, and laughed, as he ran, to think of the bull’s anger.

‘My strength is not altogether gone,’ he said. ‘It may be that the poison is not to the bone. There is a star sitting low yonder.’ He looked at it between his half-shut hands. ‘By the Bull that bought me, it is the Red Flower—the Red Flower that I lay beside before—before I came even to the first Seeonee Pack! Now that I have seen, I will finish the running.’

The marsh ended in a broad plain where a light twinkled. It was a long time since Mowgli had concerned himself with the doings of men, but this night the glimmer of the Red Flower drew him forward.