The Second Jungle Book | Page 9

Jungle.
"Only the First of the Tigers was not with us, for he was still hidden in
the marshes of the North, and when word was brought to him of the
Thing we had seen in the cave, he said. 'I will go to this Thing and
break his neck.' So he ran all the night till he came to the cave; but the
trees and the creepers on his path, remembering the order that Tha had
given, let down their branches and marked him as he ran, drawing their
fingers across his back, his flank, his forehead, and his jowl. Wherever
they touched him there was a mark and a stripe upon his yellow hide.
AND THOSE STRIPES DO THIS CHILDREN WEAR TO THIS
DAY! When he came to the cave, Fear, the Hairless One, put out his

hand and called him 'The Striped One that comes by night,' and the
First of the Tigers was afraid of the Hairless One, and ran back to the
swamps howling."
Mowgli chuckled quietly here, his chin in the water.
"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 he 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.'
"Then the First of the Tigers answered, 'I am content'; but when next he
drank he saw the black stripes upon his flank and his side, and he

remembered the name that the Hairless One had given him, and he was
angry. For a year he lived in the marshes waiting till Tha should keep
his promise. And upon a night when the jackal of the Moon [the
Evening Star] stood clear of the Jungle, he felt that his Night was upon
him, and he went to that cave to meet the Hairless One. Then it
happened as Tha promised, for the Hairless One fell down before him
and lay along the ground, and the First of the Tigers struck him and
broke his back, for he thought that there was but one such Thing in the
Jungle, and that he had killed Fear. Then, nosing above the kill, he
heard Tha coming down from the woods of the North, and presently the
voice of the First of the Elephants, which is the voice that we hear
now----"
The thunder was rolling up and down the dry, scarred hills, but it
brought no rain--only heat--lightning