All the Mowgli Stories (Macmillan Collector's Library)

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 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 be 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.