He stared all round him, but he could see no more than the mocking
Bandar-log scudding through the trees, and Mor, his tail spread in full
splendour, dancing on the slopes below.
“The smells have changed,” screamed Mor. “Good hunting, Little Brother!
Where is thy answer?”
“Little Brother, good hunting!” whistled Chil the Kite and his mate,
swooping down together. The two baffed under Mowgli’s nose so close that
a pinch of downy white feathers brushed away.
A light spring rain--elephant-rain they call it--drove across the Jungle
in a belt half a mile wide, left the new leaves wet and nodding behind,
and died out in a double rainbow and a light roll of thunder. The spring
hum broke out for a minute, and was silent, but all the Jungle Folk
seemed to be giving tongue at once. All except Mowgli.
“I have eaten good food,” he said to himself. “I have drunk good
water. Nor does my throat burn and grow small, as it did when I bit the
blue-spotted root that Oo the Turtle said was clean food. But my stomach
is heavy, and I have given very bad talk to Bagheera and others, people
of the Jungle and my people. Now, too, I am hot and now I am cold, and
now I am neither hot nor cold, but angry with that which I cannot see.
Huhu! It is time to make a running! To-night I will cross the ranges;
yes, I will make a spring running to the Marshes of the North, and back
again. I have hunted too easily too long. The Four shall come with me,
for they grow as fat as white grubs.”
He called, but never one of the Four answered. They were far beyond
earshot, singing over the spring songs--the Moon and Sambhur Songs--with
the wolves of the pack; for in the spring-time the Jungle People make
very little difference between the day and the night. He gave the sharp,
barking note, but his only answer was the mocking maiou of the little
spotted tree-cat winding in and out among the branches for early birds’
nests. At this he shook all over with rage, and half drew his knife.
Then he became very haughty, though there was no one to see him, and
stalked severely down the hillside, chin up and eyebrows down. But never
a single one of his people asked him a question, for they were all too
busy with their own affairs.
“Yes,” said Mowgli to himself, though in his heart he knew that he had
no reason. “Let the Red Dhole come from the Dekkan, or the Red Flower
dance among the bamboos, and all the Jungle runs whining to Mowgli,
calling him great elephant-names. But now, because Eye-of-the-Spring is
red, and Mor, forsooth, must show his naked legs in some spring dance,
the Jungle goes mad as Tabaqui.... By the Bull that bought me! am I the
Master of the Jungle, or am I not? Be silent! What do ye here?”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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