Messua drew aside humbly--he was indeed a wood-G.o.d, she thought; but as his hand was on the door the mother in her made her throw her arms round Mowgli"s neck again and again.
"Come back!" she whispered. "Son or no son, come back, for I love thee--Look, he too grieves."
The child was crying because the man with the shiny knife was going away.
"Come back again," Messua repeated. "By night or by day this door is never shut to thee."
Mowgli"s throat worked as though the cords in it were being pulled, and his voice seemed to be dragged from it as he answered, "I will surely come back."
"And now," he said, as he put by the head of the fawning wolf on the threshold, "I have a little cry against thee, Gray Brother. Why came ye not all four when I called so long ago?"
"So long ago? It was but last night. I--we--were singing in the Jungle the new songs, for this is the Time of New Talk. Rememberest thou?"
"Truly, truly."
"And as soon as the songs were sung," Gray Brother went on earnestly, "I followed thy trail. I ran from all the others and followed hot-foot. But, O Little Brother, what hast _thou_ done, eating and sleeping with the Man-Pack?"
"If ye had come when I called, this had never been," said Mowgli, running much faster.
"And now what is to be?" said Gray Brother.
Mowgli was just going to answer when a girl in a white cloth came down some path that led from the outskirts of the village. Gray Brother dropped out of sight at once, and Mowgli backed noiselessly into a field of high-springing crops. He could almost have touched her with his hand when the warm, green stalks closed before his face and he disappeared like a ghost. The girl screamed, for she thought she had seen a spirit, and then she gave a deep sigh. Mowgli parted the stalks with his hands and watched her till she was out of sight.
"And now I do not know," he said, sighing in his turn. "_Why_ did ye not come when I called?"
"We follow thee--we follow thee," Gray Brother mumbled, licking at Mowgli"s heel. "We follow thee always, except in the Time of the New Talk."
"And would ye follow me to the Man-Pack?" Mowgli whispered.
"Did I not follow thee on the night our old Pack cast thee out? Who waked thee lying among the crops?"
"Ay, but again?"
"Have I not followed thee to-night?"
"Ay, but again and again, and it may be again, Gray Brother?"
Gray Brother was silent. When he spoke he growled to himself, "The Black One spoke truth."
"And he said?"
"Man goes to Man at the last. Raksha, our mother, said--"
"So also said Akela on the night of Red Dog," Mowgli muttered.
"So also says Kaa, who is wiser than us all."
"What dost thou say, Gray Brother?"
"They cast thee out once, with bad talk. They cut thy mouth with stones. They sent Buldeo to slay thee. They would have thrown thee into the Red Flower. Thou, and not I, hast said that they are evil and senseless. Thou, and not I--I follow my own people--didst let in the Jungle upon them. Thou, and not I, didst make song against them more bitter even than our song against Red Dog."
"I ask thee what _thou_ sayest?"
They were talking as they ran. Gray Brother cantered on a while without replying, and then he said,--between bound and bound as it were,--"Man-cub--Master of the Jungle--Son of Raksha, Lair-brother to me--though I forget for a little while in the spring, thy trail is my trail, thy lair is my lair, thy kill is my kill, and thy death-fight is my death-fight. I speak for the Three. But what wilt thou say to the Jungle?"
"That is well thought. Between the sight and the kill it is not good to wait. Go before and cry them all to the Council Rock, and I will tell them what is in my stomach. But they may not come--in the Time of New Talk they may forget me."
"Hast thou, then, forgotten nothing?" snapped Gray Brother over his shoulder, as he laid himself down to gallop, and Mowgli followed, thinking.
At any other season the news would have called all the Jungle together with bristling necks, but now they were busy hunting and fighting and killing and singing. From one to another Gray Brother ran, crying, "The Master of the Jungle goes back to Man! Come to the Council Rock."
And the happy, eager People only answered, "He will return in the summer heats. The Rains will drive him to lair. Run and sing with us, Gray Brother."
"But the Master of the Jungle goes back to Man," Gray Brother would repeat.
"Eee--Yoawa? Is the Time of New Talk any less sweet for that?" they would reply. So when Mowgli, heavy-hearted, came up through the well-remembered rocks to the place where he had been brought into the Council, he found only the Four, Baloo, who was nearly blind with age, and the heavy, cold-blooded Kaa coiled around Akela"s empty seat.
"Thy trail ends here, then, Manling?" said Kaa, as Mowgli threw himself down, his face in his hands. "Cry thy cry. We be of one blood, thou and I--man and snake together."
"Why did I not die under Red Dog?" the boy moaned. "My strength is gone from me, and it is not any poison. By night and by day I hear a double step upon my trail. When I turn my head it is as though one had hidden himself from me that instant. I go to look behind the trees, and he is not there. I call and none cry again; but it is as though one listened and kept back the answer. I lie down, but I do not rest.
I run the spring running, but I am not made still. I bathe, but I am not made cool. The kill sickens me, but I have no heart to fight except I kill. The Red Flower is in my body, my bones are water--and--I know not what I know."
"What need of talk?" said Baloo slowly, turning his head to where Mowgli lay. "Akela by the river said it, that Mowgli should drive Mowgli back to the Man-Pack. I said it. But who listens now to Baloo?
Bagheera--where is Bagheera this night?--he knows also. It is the Law."
"When we met at Cold Lairs, Manling, I knew it," said Kaa, turning a little in his mighty coils. "Man goes to Man at the last, though the Jungle does not cast him out."
The Four looked at one another and at Mowgli, puzzled but obedient.
"The Jungle does not cast me out, then?" Mowgli stammered.
Gray Brother and the Three growled furiously, beginning, "So long as we live none shall dare--" But Baloo checked them.
"I taught thee the Law. It is for me to speak," he said; "and, though I cannot now see the rocks before me, I see far. Little Frog, take thine own trail; make thy lair with thine own blood and pack and people; but when there is need of foot or tooth or eye, or a word carried swiftly by night, remember, Master of the Jungle, the Jungle is thine at call."
"The Middle Jungle is thine also," said Kaa. "I speak for no small people."
"_Hai-mai_, my brothers," cried Mowgli, throwing up his arms with a sob. "I know not what I know! I would not go; but I am drawn by both feet. How shall I leave these nights?"
"Nay, look up, Little Brother," Baloo repeated. "There is no shame in this hunting. When the honey is eaten we leave the empty hive."
"Having cast the skin," said Kaa, "we may not creep into it afresh. It is the Law."
"Listen, dearest of all to me," said Baloo. "There is neither word nor will here to hold thee back. Look up! Who may question the Master of the Jungle? I saw thee playing among the white pebbles yonder when thou wast a little frog; and Bagheera, that bought thee for the price of a young bull newly killed, saw thee also. Of that Looking Over we two only remain; for Raksha, thy lair-mother, is dead with thy lair-father; the old Wolf Pack is long since dead; thou knowest whither Shere Khan went, and Akela died among the dholes, where, but for thy wisdom and strength, the second Seeonee Pack would also have died. There remains nothing but old bones. It is no longer the Man-cub that asks leave of his Pack, but the Master of the Jungle that changes his trail. Who shall question Man in his ways?"
"But Bagheera and the Bull that bought me," said Mowgli. "I would not--"
His words were cut short by a roar and a crash in the thicket below, and Bagheera, light, strong, and terrible as always, stood before him.
"_Therefore_," he said, stretching out a dripping right paw, "I did not come. It was a long hunt, but he lies dead in the bushes now--a bull in his second year--the Bull that frees thee, Little Brother. All debts are paid now. For the rest, my word is Baloo"s word." He licked Mowgli"s foot. "Remember, Bagheera loved thee," he cried and bounded away. At the foot of the hill he cried again long and loud, "Good hunting on a new trail, Master of the Jungle! Remember, Bagheera loved thee."