Mowgli’s Brothers

Now Rann the Kite brings home the night

That Mang the Bat sets free—

The herds are shut in byre and hut,

For we are loose till dawn.

This is the hour of pride and power,

Talon and tusk and claw.

Oh, hear the call!—Good hunting to all

That keep the Jungle Law!

Night-Song in the Jungle

It was seven o’clock on a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke from his day’s rest, scratched himself, yawned, and stretched out his paws one after the other to shake off the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. “Augrh!” said Father Wolf. “It’s time to hunt again.” He was about to spring downhill when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined: “Good luck to you, O Chief of the Wolves. And good luck and strong white teeth to the noble children, so they may never forget the hungry in this world.”

It was the jackal—Tabaqui, the Dish-licker—and the wolves of India despise Tabaqui because he runs about making mischief, telling tales, and eating rags and pieces of leather from the village rubbish heaps. But they are afraid of him too, because Tabaqui, more than anyone else in the jungle, is likely to go mad, and then he forgets he was ever afraid of anyone, and runs through the forest biting everything in his way. Even the tiger runs and hides when little Tabaqui goes mad, for madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtake a wild creature. We call it hydrophobia, but they call it madness, and run.

“Enter, then, and look,” said Father Wolf stiffly, “but there is no food here.”