阿克拉这只刚毅的老狼一生中从未求过谁，此时却用凄哀的眼神望着莫格里。小男孩浑身赤裸，站在那儿，长长的黑发披在肩头，燃烧的树枝映亮了他的脸，影子在他周围颤动、跳跃。
“好！”莫格里慢慢打量着四周说，“我看出来了，你们的确是狗。我要离开你们，去找我的同类——如果他们真是我同类的话。丛林已经向我关闭，我必须忘记你们的语言，你们的陪伴，但我会比你们仁慈。因为除了血缘，我其实就是你们的兄弟，所以我承诺，我回到人群中间以后，不会像你们出卖我一样，把你们出卖给人。”他踹了一下火，火苗又蹿起来。“人类和这个氏族之间不会有任何战争。可是走之前我还有一笔账要算。”谢尔汗正坐在不远处，对着火焰呆呆地眨着眼睛。莫格里大步走到他跟前，揪住他下巴上的一撮毛。巴希拉紧跟在他后面，以防他失手。“起来，狗！”莫格里吼道，“起来，你敢不听人的话？小心我烧了你这身皮！”
谢尔汗的耳朵耷拉下来，贴在脑袋上。他闭上眼睛，因为燃烧的树枝离他太近了。
“这个杀耕牛的家伙说他要在议事会上杀了我，因为我小的时候他没能把我杀死。我们人就是这样揍狗的！瘸鬼，你要动一下胡子，我就把这红花从你喉咙里灌下去！”他用树枝抽打谢尔汗的脑袋，老虎吓得魂飞魄散，哀哀地哭着。
“呸！烤焦的丛林猫——走吧！可是记住，等下次我以人的身份到这议事岩来，我头上顶着的会是谢尔汗的皮！还有，阿克拉可以自由地生活。你们不能杀他，因为我不允许。你们也别在这儿坐着啦，吐着舌头，好像你们还挺了不起似的，你们不过是我驱赶的一群狗！——好啦！滚！”树枝的一头火烧得正旺，莫格里左右拍打，火花四溅，烫伤的狼群嗥叫着奔散了。最后只剩阿克拉、巴希拉和大约十只站在莫格里一边的狼。莫格里突然感到身体里面有种从未体验过的疼痛。他的呼吸一阵发紧，忍不住哭了，泪珠从脸上滑下来。
“这是怎么啦？这是怎么啦？”他说，“我不想离开丛林，我不知道我这是怎么啦。我是快死了吗，巴希拉？”
“不，小兄弟。这不过是人的泪水罢了。”巴希拉说，“现在我知道你已经成人，不再是人娃了。从今以后丛林的确不再向你敞开了。让它们掉下来吧，莫格里，不过是泪水而已。”于是，莫格里坐在那里一直哭，仿佛心都快碎了。他以前从来没哭过。
“现在，”他说，“我要回到人类中间去了。可是我必须先向母亲告别。”他走到狼妈妈和狼爸爸住的洞穴里，趴在她身上哭，四只小狼也伤心地嗥叫。
“你们不会忘了我吧？”莫格里说。
“只要你沿途留下脚印就不会。”小狼们说，“你成了人以后，到山脚来，我们会跟你说话的，晚上我们会到庄稼地里和你玩的。”
“早点回来！”狼爸爸说，“聪明的小青蛙，早点回来，你妈妈和我都已经老了。”
“早点回来，”狼妈妈说，“我光溜溜的小儿子，听着，人的孩子，我爱你胜过爱我自己的孩子。”
“我一定会很快回来，”莫格里说，“我再来的时候，会把谢尔汗的皮晾在议事岩上。别忘了我啊！叫丛林里的朋友都别忘了我！”
天快亮了，莫格里独自走下山坡，去见那些被称为人的神秘动物。
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 apt to go mad, and then he forgets that 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 dewanee——the madness—— and run.
“Enter, then, and look,” said Father Wolf stiffly, “but there is no food here.”
“For a wolf, no,” said Tabaqui, “but for so mean a person as myself a dry bone is a good feast. Who are we, the Gidur-log [the jackal people], to pick and choose?” He scuttled to the back of the cave, where he found the bone of a buck with some meat on it, and sat cracking the end merrily.
“All thanks for this good meal,” he said, licking his lips. “How beautiful are the noble children! How large are their eyes! And so young too! Indeed, indeed, I might have remembered that the children of kings are men from the beginning.”
Now, Tabaqui knew as well as anyone else that there is nothing so unlucky as to compliment children to their faces. It pleased him to see Mother and Father Wolf look uncomfortable.
Tabaqui sat still, rejoicing in the mischief that he had made, and then he said spitefully:
“Shere Khan, the Big One, has shifted his hunting grounds. He will hunt among these hills for the next moon, so he has told me.”
Shere Khan was the tiger who lived near the Waingunga River, twenty miles away.
“He has no right!” Father Wolf began angrily——”By the Law of the Jungle he has no right to change his quarters without due warning.
He will frighten every head of game within ten miles, and I——I have tokill for two, these days.”
“His mother did not call him Lungri [the Lame One] fornothing,” said Mother Wolf quietly. “He has been lame in one footfrom his birth. That is why he has only killed cattle. Now the villagers ofthe Waingunga are angry with him, and he has come here to make ourvillagers angry. They will scour the jungle for him when he is far away,and we and our children must run when the grass is set alight. Indeed, weare very grateful to Shere Khan!”
“Shall I tell him of your gratitude?” said Tabaqui.
“Out!” snapped Father Wolf. “Out and hunt with yourmaster. You hast done harm enough for one night.”
“I go,” said Tabaqui quietly. “You can hear Shere Khan belowin the thickets. I might have saved myself the message.”
Father Wolf listened, and below in the valley that ran down to alittle river he heard the dry, angry, snarly, singsong whine of a tiger whohas caught nothing and does not care if all the jungle knows it.
“The fool!” said Father Wolf. “To begin a night"s work withthat noise！
Does he think that our buck are like his fat Waingunga bullocks？”
“H"sh. It is neither bullock nor buck he hunts to-night,” saidMother Wolf. “It is Man.”
The whine had changed to a sort of humming purr that seemed tocome from every quarter of the compass. It was the noise that bewilderswoodcutters and gypsies sleeping in the open, and makes them runsometimes into the very mouth of the tiger.
“Man！” said Father Wolf, showing all his white teeth.
“Faugh！ Are there not enough beetles and frogs in the tanks that hemust eat Man, and on our ground too！”
The Law of the Jungle, which never orders anything without a reason, forbids every beast to eat Man except when he is killing to show his children how to kill, and then he must hunt outside the hunting grounds of his pack or tribe. The real reason for this is that man-killing means, sooner or later, the arrival of white men on elephants, with guns, and hundreds of brown men with gongs and rockets and torches. Then everybody in the jungle suffers. The reason the beasts give among themselves is that Man is the weakest and most defenseless of all living things, and it is unsportsmanlike to touch him. They say too——and it is true ——that maneaters become mangy, and lose their teeth.
The purr grew louder, and ended in the full-throated “Aaarh！” of the tiger"s charge.
Then there was a howl——an untigerish howl——from Shere Khan. “He has missed,” said Mother Wolf. “What is it？”
Father Wolf ran out a few paces and heard Shere Khan muttering and mumbling savagely as he tumbled about in the scrub.
“The fool has had no more sense than to jump at a woodcutter"s campfire, and has burned his feet,” said Father Wolf with a grunt.” Tabaqui is with him.”
“Something is coming uphill,” said Mother Wolf, twitching one ear.”
Get ready.”
The bushes rustled a little in the thicket, and Father Wolf dropped with his haunches under him, ready for his leap. Then, if you had been watching, you would have seen the most wonderful thing in the world—— the wolf checked in mid-spring. He made his bound before he saw what it was he was jumping at, and then he tried to stop himself. The result was that he shot up straight into the air for four or five feet, landing almost where he left ground.
“Man！” he snapped. “A man"s cub. Look！”