The Second Jungle Book | Page 7

Hathi lifted up his trunk and spoke quietly.
"Thy kill was from choice?" he asked; and when Hathi asks a question it is best to answer.
"Even so. It was my right and my Night. Thou knowest, O Hathi." Shere Khan spoke almost courteously.
"Yes, I know," Hathi answered; and, after a little silence, "Hast thou drunk thy fill?"
"For to-night, yes."
"Go, then. The river is to drink, and not to defile. None but the Lame Tiger would so have boasted of his right at this season when--when we suffer together--Man and Jungle People alike." Clean or unclean, get to thy lair, Shere Khan!"
The last words rang out like silver trumpets, and Hathi's three sons rolled forward half a pace, though there was no need. Shere Khan slunk away, not daring to growl, for he knew--what every one else knows--that when the last comes to the last, Hathi is the Master of the Jungle.
"What is this right Shere Khan speaks of?" Mowgli whispered in Bagheera's ear. "To kill Man is always, shameful. The Law says so. And yet Hathi says----"
"Ask him. I do not know, Little Brother. Right or no right, if Hathi had not spoken I would have taught that lame butcher his lesson. To come to the Peace Rock fresh from a kill of Man--and to boast of it--is a jackal's trick. Besides, he tainted the good water."
Mowgli waited for a minute to pick up his courage, because no one cared to address Hathi directly, and then he cried: "What is Shere Khan's right, O Hathi?" Both banks echoed his words, for all the People of the Jungle are intensely curious, and they had just seen something that none except Baloo, who looked very thoughtful, seemed to understand.
"It is an old tale," said Hathi; "a tale older than the Jungle. Keep silence along the banks and I will tell that tale."
There was a minute or two of pushing a shouldering among the pigs and the buffalo, and then the leaders of the herds grunted, one after another, "We wait," and Hathi strode forward, till he was nearly knee-deep in the pool by the Peace Rock. Lean and wrinkled and yellow-tusked though he was, he looked what the Jungle knew him to be--their master.
"Ye know, children," he began, "that of all things ye most fear Man"; and there was a mutter of agreement.
"This tale touches thee, Little Brother," said Bagheera to Mowgli.
"I? I am of the Pack--a hunter of the Free People," Mowgli answered. "What have I to do with Man?"
"And ye do not know why ye fear Man?" Hathi went on. "This is the reason. In the beginning of the Jungle, and none know when that was, we of the Jungle walked together, having no fear of one another. In those days there was no drought, and leaves and flowers and fruit grew on the same tree, and we ate nothing at all except leaves and flowers and grass and fruit and bark."
"I am glad I was not born in those days," said Bagheera. "Bark is only good to sharpen claws."
"And the Lord of the Jungle was Tha, the First of the Elephants. He drew the Jungle out of deep waters with his trunk; and where he made furrows in the ground with his tusks, there the rivers ran; and where he struck with his foot, there rose ponds of good water; and when he blew through his trunk,-- thus,--the trees fell. That was the manner in which the Jungle was made by Tha; and so the tale was told to me."
"It has not lost fat in the telling," Bagheera whispered, and Mowgli laughed behind his hand.
"In those days there was no corn or melons or pepper or sugar-cane, nor were there any little huts such as ye have all seen; and the Jungle People knew nothing of Man, but lived in the Jungle together, making one people. But presently they began to dispute over their food, though there was grazing enough for all. They were lazy. Each wished to eat where he lay, as sometimes we can do now when the spring rains are good. Tha, the First of the Elephants, was busy making new jungles and leading the rivers in their beds. He could not walk in all places; therefore he made the First of the Tigers the master and the judge of the Jungle, to whom the Jungle People should bring their disputes. In those days the First of the Tigers ate fruit and grass with the others. He was as large as I am, and he was very beautiful, in colour all over like the blossom of the yellow creeper. There was never stripe nor bar upon his hide in those good days when this the Jungle was new. All the Jungle People came before him without fear,