As he stood in the red light of the oil-lamp, strong, tall, and beautiful, his long black hair sweeping over his shoulders, the knife swinging at his neck, and his head crowned with a wreath of white jasmine, he might easily have been mistaken for some wild god of a jungle legend. The child half asleep on a cot sprang up and shrieked aloud with terror. Messua turned to soothe him, while Mowgli stood still, looking in at the water-jars and the cooking-pots, the grain-bin, and all the other human belongings that he found himself remembering so well. "What wilt thou eat or drink?" Messua murmured. "This is all thine. We owe our lives to thee. But art thou him I called Nathoo, or a Godling, indeed?" "I am Nathoo," said Mowgli, "I am very far from my own place. I saw this light, and came hither. I did not know thou wast here." "After we came to Kanhiwara," Messua said timidly, "the English would have helped us against those villagers that sought to burn us. Rememberest thou?" "Indeed, I have not forgotten." "But when the English Law was made ready, we went to the village of those evil people, and it was no more to be found." "That also I remember," said Mowgli, with a quiver of his nostril. "My man, therefore, took service in the fields, and at last--for, indeed, he was a strong man--we held a little land here. It is not so rich as the old village, but we do not need much--we two." "Where is he--the man that dug in the dirt when he was afraid on that night?" "He is dead--a year." "And he?" Mowgli pointed to the child. "My son that was born two Rains ago. If thou art a Godling, give him the Favor of the Jungle, that he may be safe among thy--thy people, as we were safe on that night." She lifted up the child, who, forgetting his fright, reached out to play with the knife that hung on Mowgli's chest, and Mowgli put the little fingers aside very carefully. "And if thou art Nathoo whom the tigers carried away," Messua went on, choking, "he is then thy younger brother. Give him an elder brother's blessing." "_Hai-mai!_ What do I know of the thing called a blessing? I am neither a Godling nor his brother, and--O mother, mother, my heart is heavy in me." He shivered as he set down the child. "Like enough," said Messua, bustling among the cooking-pots. "This comes of running about the marshes by night. Beyond question, the fever has soaked thee to the marrow." Mowgli smiled a little at the idea of anything in the Jungle hurting him. "I will make a fire, and thou shalt drink warm milk. Put away the jasmine wreath: the smell is heavy in so small a place."