The Jungle Books (23 page)

“They throw a thing that cuts now,” said Sahi, rustling down the bank, for Sahi was considered uncommonly good eating by the Gonds—they called him Ho-Igoo—and he knew something of the wicked little Gondi axe that whirls across a clearing like a dragon-fly.

“It was a pointed stick, such as they set in the foot of a pit-trap,” said Hathi. “And throwing it, he struck the First of the Tigers deep in the flank. Thus it happened as Tha said, for the First of the Tigers ran howling up and down the jungle till he tore out the stick, and all the jungle knew that the Hairless One could strike from far off, and they feared more than before. So it came about that the First of the Tigers taught the Hairless One to kill—and ye know what harm that has since done to all our peoples—through the noose, and the pitfall, and the hidden trap, and the flying stick, and the stinging fly that comes out of white smoke [Hathi meant the rifle], and the Red Flower that drives us into the open. Yet for one night in the year the Hairless One fears the tiger, as Tha promised, and never has the tiger given him cause to be less afraid. Where he finds him, there he kills him, remembering how the First of the Tigers was made ashamed. For the rest, Fear walks up and down the jungle by day and by night.”

“
Ahi! Aoo!
” said the deer, thinking of what it all meant to them.

“And only when there is one great Fear over all, as there is now, can we of the jungle lay aside our little fears, and meet together in one place as we do now.”

“For one night only does Man fear the tiger?” said Mowgli.

“For one night only,” said Hathi.

“But I—but we—but all the jungle knows that Shere Khan kills Man twice and thrice in a moon.”

“Even so.
Then
he springs from behind and turns his head aside as he strikes, for he is full of fear. If Man looked at him he would run. But on his night he goes openly down to the village. He walks between the houses and thrusts his head into the doorway, and the men fall on their faces, and there he does his kill. One kill in that night.”

“Oh!” said Mowgli to himself, rolling over in the water. “
Now
I see why Shere Khan bade me look at him. He got no good of it, for he could not hold his eyes steady, and—and I certainly did not fall down at his feet. But then I am not a man, being of the Free People.”

“
Umm!
” said Bagheera deep in his furry throat. “Does the tiger know his night?”

“Never till the Jackal of the Moon stands clear of the evening mist. Sometimes it falls in the dry summer and sometimes in the wet rains—this one night of the tiger. But for the First of the Tigers this would never have been, nor would any of us have known fear.”

The deer grunted sorrowfully, and Bagheera’s lips curled in a wicked smile. “Do men know this—tale?” said he.

“None know it except the tigers, and we, the elephants—the children of Tha. Now ye by the pools have heard it, and I have spoken.”

Hathi dipped his trunk into the water as a sign that he did not wish to talk.

“But—but—but,” said Mowgli, turning to Baloo, “why did not the First of the Tigers continue to eat grass and leaves and trees? He did but break the buck’s neck. He did not
eat
. What led him to the hot meat?”

“The trees and the creepers marked him, Little Brother, and made him the striped thing that we see. Never again would he eat their fruit, but from that day he revenged himself upon the deer, and the others, the Eaters of Grass,” said Baloo.

“Then
thou
knowest the tale.
Heh?
Why have I never heard?”

“Because the jungle is full of such tales. If I made a beginning there would never be an end to them. Let go my ear, Little Brother.”

Just to give you an idea of the immense variety of the Jungle Law, I have translated into verse (Baloo always recited them in a sort of sing-song) a few of the laws that apply to the wolves. There are, of course, hundreds and hundreds more, but these will serve as specimens of the simpler rulings.

Now this is the Law of the Jungle—as old and as true as the sky;

And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.

As the creeper that girdles the tree-trunk the Law runneth forward and back—

For the strength of the pack is the wolf, and the strength of the wolf is the pack.

Wash daily from nose-tip to tail-tip; drink deeply, but never too deep;

And remember the night is for hunting, and forget not the day is for sleep.

The jackal may follow the tiger, but, cub, when thy whiskers are grown,

Remember the wolf is a hunter—go forth and get food of thine own.

Keep peace with the lords of the jungle—the tiger, the panther, and bear;

And trouble not Hathi the Silent, and mock not the boar in his lair.

When pack meets with pack in the jungle, and neither will go from the trail,

Lie down till the leaders have spoken—it may be fair words shall prevail.

When ye fight with a wolf of the pack, ye must fight him alone and afar,

Lest others take part in the quarrel, and the pack be diminished by war.

The lair of the wolf is his refuge, and where he has made him his home,

Not even the head wolf may enter, not even the council may come.

The lair of the wolf is his refuge, but where he has digged it too plain,

The council shall send him a message, and so he shall change it again.

If ye kill before midnight, be silent, and wake not the woods with your bay,

Lest ye frighten the deer from the crop, and your brothers go empty away.

Ye may kill for yourselves, and your mates, and your cubs as they need, and ye can;

But kill not for pleasure of killing, and
seven times never kill Man!

If ye plunder his kill from a weaker, devour not all in thy pride;

Pack-right is the right of the meanest; so leave him the head and the hide.

The kill of the pack is the meat of the pack. Ye must eat where it lies;

And no one may carry away of that meat to his lair,
or he dies.

The kill of the wolf is the meat of the wolf. He may do what he will;

But, till he has given permission, the pack may not eat of that kill.

Cub-right is the right of the yearling. From all of his pack he may claim

Full-gorge when the killer has eaten; and none may refuse him the same.

Lair-right is the right of the mother. From all of her year she may claim

One haunch of each kill for her litter, and none may deny her the same.

Cave-right is the right of the father—to hunt by himself for his own:

He is freed of all calls to the pack; he is judged by the council alone.

Because of his age and his cunning, because of his gripe and his paw,

In all that the Law leaveth open, the word of your head wolf is Law.

Now these are the Laws of the Jungle, and many and mighty are they;

But the head and the hoof of the Law and the haunch and the hump is—Obey!

T
HERE
was once a man in India who was Prime Minister of one of the semi-independent native states in the north-western part of the country. He was a Brahmin, so high-caste that caste ceased to have any particular meaning for him, and his father had been an important official in the gay-coloured tag-rag and bob-tail of an old-fashioned Hindu Court. But as Purun Dass grew up he realised that the ancient order of things was changing, and that if any one wished to get on he must stand well with the English, and imitate all the English believed to be good. At the same time a native official must keep his own master’s favour. This was a difficult game, but
the quiet, close-mouthed young Brahmin, helped by a good English education at a Bombay university, played it coolly, and rose, step by step, to be Prime Minister of the kingdom. That is to say, he held more real power than his master, the Maharajah.

When the old king—who was suspicious of the English, their railways and telegraphs—died, Purun Dass stood high with his young successor, who had been tutored by an Englishman. And between them, though he always took care that his master should have the credit, they established schools for little girls, made roads; and started State dispensaries and shows of agricultural implements, and published a yearly blue-book on the “Moral and Material Progress of the State,” and the Foreign Office and the Government of India were delighted. Very few native states take up English progress without reservations, for they will not believe, as Purun Dass showed he did, that what is good for the Englishman must be twice as good for the Asiatic. The Prime Minister became the honoured friend of viceroys and governors, and lieutenant-governors, and medical missionaries, and common missionaries, and hard-riding English officers who came to shoot in the State preserves, as well as of whole hosts of tourists who travelled up and down India in the cold weather, showing how things ought to be managed. In his spare time he would endow scholarships for the study of medicine and manufactures on strictly English lines, and write letters to the
Pioneer
, the greatest Indian daily paper, explaining his master’s aims and objects.

At last he went to England on a visit, and had to pay enormous sums to the priests when he came back, for even so high-caste a Brahmin as Purun Dass lost caste by crossing the black sea. In London he met and talked with every one worth knowing—men whose names go all over the world—and saw a great deal more than he said. He was given honorary degrees by learned universities, and he made speeches and talked of Hindu social reform to English ladies in evening dress, till all London
cried: “This is the most fascinating man we have ever met at dinner since cloths were first laid!”

When he returned to India there was a blaze of glory, for the Viceroy himself made a special visit to confer upon the Maharajah the Grand Cross of the Star of India—all diamonds and ribbons and enamel. And at the same ceremony, while the cannon boomed, Purun Dass was made a Knight Commander of the Order of the Indian Empire, so that his name stood Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E.

That evening at dinner in the big Viceregal tent he stood up with the badge and the collar of the order on his breast, and replying to the toast of his master’s health, made a speech that few Englishmen could have surpassed.

Next month, when the city had returned to its sun-baked quiet, he did a thing no Englishman would have dreamed of doing, for, so far as the world’s affairs went, he died. The jewelled order of his knighthood returned to the Indian Government, and a new Prime Minister was appointed to the charge of affairs, and a great game of General Post began in all the subordinate appointments. The priests knew what had happened and the people guessed, but India is the one place in the world where a man can do as he pleases and nobody asks why. And the fact that Dewan Sir Purun Dass, K.C.I.E., had resigned position, palace, and power, and taken up the begging-bowl and ochre-coloured dress of a Sannyasi or holy man, was considered nothing extraordinary. He had been, as the Old Law recommends, twenty years a youth, twenty years a fighter—though he had never carried a weapon in his life—and twenty years head of a household. He had used his wealth and his power for what he knew both to be worth; he had taken honour when it came his way; he had seen men and cities far and near, and men and cities had stood up and honoured him. Now he would let these things go, as a man drops the cloak he needs no longer.

Behind him, as he walked through the city gates, an
antelope skin and brass-handled crutch under his arm, and a begging-bowl of polished brown
coco-de-mer
in his hand, barefoot, alone, with eyes cast on the ground—behind him they were firing salutes from the bastions in honour of his happy successor. Purun Dass nodded. All that life was ended, and he bore it no more ill-will or good-will than a man bears to a colourless dream of the night. He was a Sannyasi—a houseless, wandering mendicant, depending on his neighbours for his daily bread, and so long as there is a morsel to divide in India neither priest nor beggar starves. He had never in his life tasted meat, and very seldom eaten even fish. A five-pound note would have covered his personal expenses for food through any one of the many years in which he had been absolute master of millions of money. Even when he was being lionised in London he had held before him his dream of peace and quiet—the long, white, dusty Indian road, printed all over with bare feet, the incessant, slow-moving traffic, and the sharp-smelling wood-smoke curling up under the fig-trees in the twilight, where the wayfarers sat at their evening meal.

When the time came to make that dream true the Prime Minister took the proper steps, and in three days you might more easily have found a bubble in the trough of the long Atlantic seas than Purun Dass among the roving, gathering, separating millions of India.

At night his antelope skin was spread where the darkness overtook him—sometimes in a Sannyasi monastery by the roadside; sometimes by a mud pillar shrine of Kala Pir, where the Yogis, who are another misty division of holy men, would receive him as they do those who know what castes and divisions are worth; sometimes on the outskirts of a little Hindu village, where the children would steal up with the food their parents had prepared; and sometimes on the pitch of the bare grazing-grounds where the flame of his stick fire waked the drowsy camels. It was all one to Purun Dass—or Purun Bhagat, as he called himself now. Earth, people, and food were all one. But, unconsciously, his feet drew
him away northwards and eastwards; from the south to Rohtak; from Rohtak to Kurnool; from Kurnool to ruined Samanah, and then up-stream along the dried bed of the Gugger River that fills only when the rain falls in the hills, till, one day, he saw the far line of the great Himalayas.