Knjigice
Fairy tale · Classic fairy tales
The Second Jungle Book
Three more stories of Mowgli, the boy raised by wolves
Also in: Druga knjiga o džungli (Slovenian) · Druhá kniha džunglí (Slovak)
One hot day Kaa said to Mowgli: "I will show you something no man has ever seen." She slid down beneath the ruined city in the jungle, through a narrow crack in the stone, deep into a dark underground hall. Mowgli crawled after her. Down there it smelled of cold stone and old, old darkness. "Walk softly," hissed Kaa. "Someone keeps guard below."
1
In the middle of the hall lay a treasure: gold coins, silver bowls and jewels heaped like sand. Above them rose a huge white cobra with pale eyes. "A hundred years I have guarded the dead king's treasure," she said. "Kings are dust; I keep watch." The gold did not interest Mowgli. He took only a fine elephant goad, all rubies and turquoise. "I will show this to Bagheera!" — "Put it down," said the cobra. "Death is in it." Mowgli only laughed.
2
Outside, Bagheera looked hard at the sharp point of the goad. "This thing has done men harm," he said. Mowgli soon tired of it and flung it into the thicket. Next morning they went back along its trail. The trail was long and sad: whoever found the goad wanted it for himself alone. Six men lay by the path, killed over it by one another. Mowgli was silent a long while.
3
"The cobra spoke the truth," said Mowgli. "Death is in it." He picked the goad up, carried it back into the cold underground hall and laid it on the heap of gold. "Guard it still," he told the white cobra. "I need nothing that kills of itself." Then he stepped out into the sun, wiped his hands on the grass and breathed the jungle in deep.
4
Some moons later Mowgli came down to the village at the jungle's edge. But the villagers feared him. "Wolf child! Sorcerer!" they cried, and shut the heavy bamboo gate behind him. Mowgli stood alone in the dusk. He was not angry, only very quiet. "Very well," he said at last. "If you will not have me, let the jungle take this land back."
5
He went deep among the trees and called. Deer came, and wild pigs, wolves and monkeys. "Do no one any harm," said Mowgli. "Only eat. Eat their fields until not one ear of corn is left." And that night the silent herds walked into the grain. By morning the fields were melting away like snow in spring.
6
Then Mowgli called Hathi the grey elephant and his three sons. They came like four silent hills. Their foreheads pushed the fences over, their trunks pulled the thatched roofs apart, their feet crumbled the mud walls. No one was hurt — the houses simply sank down one by one and the village lost its shape.
7
The villagers gathered their things, drove out their cattle and went over the hill into another valley, where there was more water. They looked back only once. By next spring lush grass covered the paths, creepers climbed the fallen roofs and deer grazed quietly among the houses. The jungle had simply taken its own back.
8
Years went by. Mowgli was seventeen, tall and swifter than anyone in the jungle. And the New Talk came — the spring when the whole jungle sings. The trees blossomed overnight, peacocks danced, frogs shouted by the water, every beast found its own. Only Mowgli walked alone and did not know what ailed him.
9
"My stomach hurts," he told Baloo. "Or my heart. I cannot say." Baloo sniffed him and shook his big head: "You are well, Little Brother." But Bagheera said quietly: "That is no sickness. It is something the jungle has no name for." Mowgli left them and stared all evening at the small fires of the far villages.
10
That night he ran. He ran as never before — across meadows, through bamboo, over streams, past astonished deer that sprang out of his way. He ran all night, until his legs burned and his chest was on fire. But the sadness ran with him and would not leave him.
11
When day broke he stopped. The valley smelled of cooking-fire smoke. Somewhere a woman's voice sang a song Mowgli did not know, and yet it seemed like home. He sat down in the tall grass and listened a long time. And then he understood: the jungle was his for ever, but his place from now on was among people.
12
On the Council Rock four were waiting for him: Baloo, Bagheera, Kaa and old Akela. Nobody wept. They only touched one another a long while, the way those who love each other touch. "We be of one blood, ye and I," said the wolves, as always. "For ever," said Mowgli. Then he turned and went down the path toward the lights of people. Behind him the whole jungle was silent.
13The End
