the Waingunga are angry with him and he has come here to make our villagers angry Indeed we are very grateful to Shere Khan Shall I tell him of your gratitude said Tabaqui Out snapped Father Wolf Out and hunt with your master I go said Tabaqui quietly Below in the valley that ran down to a little river Father Wolf heard a noise It was the snarly singsong whine of a tiger who has caught nothing The fool said Father Wolf To begin a night’s work with that noise Does he think our buck are like his fat steer It is neither steer nor buck he hunts tonight said Mother Wolf It is Man Man said Father Wolf showing all his white teeth Are there not enough beetles and frogs that he must eat Man The Law of the Jungle never orders anything without a reason It forbids every beast to eat 8
Man except when he is showing his children how to kill Man-killing means the arrival of white men on elephants with guns and brown men with gongs rockets and torches Then everybody in the Jungle suffers The beasts say man-eaters become mangy and lose their teeth It is true A purr grew louder and ended in a full Aaarh of the tiger’s charge Then there was a howl an untigerish howl from Shere Khan He has missed said Mother Wolf Something is coming uphill Get ready The bush rustled a little Father Wolf dropped his haunches ready to leap He made his bound before he saw what it was he was jumping at Then he tried to stop himself He shot straight up into the air for four or fi ve feet landing almost where he left the ground A man’s cub he snapped Directly in front of him stood a naked brown baby holding on to a low branch He looked up into Father Wolf’s face and laughed 9
Bring it here said Mother Wolf A wolf can mouth an egg without breaking it Father Wolf’s jaws closed right on the child’s back yet not a tooth even scratched the skin He laid it down among the cubs How little How naked and how bold said Mother Wolf softly The baby was pushing his way between the cubs to get close to the warm hide Ahai He is taking his meal with the others He is altogether without hair and I could kill him with a touch of my foot said Father Wolf But see he looks up and is not afraid The moonlight was suddenly blocked out of the cave Shere Khan’s great square head and shoulders were thrust into the entrance Tabaqui was squeaking behind him My Lord it went in here Shere Khan does us a great honor said Father Wolf but his eyes were very angry What does Shere Khan need 10
A man’s cub went this way said Shere Khan Give it to me Father Wolf knew the mouth of the cave was too narrow for a tiger to come in The Wolves are a free people he said They take orders from the Head of the Pack not from any striped cattle-killer The man’s cub is ours to kill if we choose What talk is this of choosing Am I to stand nosing into your dog’s den for my fair dues It is I Shere Khan who speaks The tiger’s roar fi lled the cave with thunder Mother Wolf sprang forward her eyes like two green moons in the darkness And it is I Raksha the Demon who answers The man’s cub is mine Now back you go to your mother lamer than ever you came into the world Shere Khan could not stand up against Mother Wolf She had all the advantage of the ground and would fi ght to the death So he 11
