"So loud did he howl that Tha heard him and said, 'What is the
sorrow?' And the First of the Tigers, lifting up his muzzle to the
new-made sky, which is now so old, said: 'Give me back my power, O
Tha. I am made ashamed before all the Jungle, and I have run away from
a Hairless One, and he has called me a shameful name.' 'And why?' said
Tha. 'Because I am smeared with the mud of the marshes,' said the
First of the Tigers. 'Swim, then, and roll on the wet grass, and if it
be mud it will wash away,' said Tha; and the First of the Tigers swam,
and rolled and rolled upon the grass, till the Jungle ran round and
round before his eyes, but not one little bar upon all his hide was
changed, and Tha, watching him, laughed. Then the First of the Tigers
said, 'What have I done that this comes to me?' Tha said, 'Thou hast
killed the buck, and thou hast let Death loose in the Jungle, and with
Death has come Fear, so that the people of the Jungle are afraid one
of the other, as thou art afraid of the Hairless One.' The First of
the Tigers said, 'They will never fear me, for I knew them since the
beginning.' Tha said, 'Go and see.' And the First of the Tigers ran to
and fro, calling aloud to the deer and the pig and the sambhur and the
porcupine and all the Jungle Peoples, and they all ran away from him
who had been their judge, because they were afraid.
"Then the First of the Tigers came back, and his pride was broken in
him, and, beating his head upon the ground, he tore up the earth with
all his feet and said: 'Remember that I was once the Master of the
Jungle. Do not forget me, O Tha! Let my children remember that I was
once without shame or fear!' And Tha said: 'This much I will do,
because thou and I together saw the Jungle made. For one night in each
year it shall be as it was before the buck was killed--for thee and
for thy children. In that one night, if ye meet the Hairless One--and
his name is Man--ye shall not be afraid of him, but he shall be afraid
of you, as though ye were judges of the Jungle and masters of all
things. Show him mercy in that night of his fear, for thou hast known
what Fear is.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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