The Jungle Book Rudyard Kipling (i am malala young readers edition .txt) đ
- Author: Rudyard Kipling
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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 tooâ âand it is trueâ âthat man-eaters become mangy, and lose their teeth.
The purr grew louder, and ended in the full-throated âAaarh!â of the tigerâs charge.
Then there was a howlâ âan untigerish howlâ âfrom Shere Khan. âHe has missed,â said Mother Wolf. âWhat is it?â
Father Wolf ran out a few paces and heard Shere Khan muttering and mumbling savagely, as he tumbled about in the scrub.
âThe fool has had no more sense than to jump at a woodcuttersâ campfire, so he has burned his feet,â said Father Wolf, with a grunt. âTabaqui is with him.â
âSomething is coming uphill,â said Mother Wolf, twitching one ear. âGet ready.â
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 worldâ âthe 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.
âMan!â he snapped. âA manâs cub. Look!â
Directly in front of him, holding on by a low branch, stood a naked brown baby who could just walkâ âas soft and as dimpled a little thing as ever came to a wolfâs cave at night. He looked up into Father Wolfâs face and laughed.
âIs that a manâs cub?â said Mother Wolf. âI have never seen one. Bring it here.â
A wolf accustomed to moving his own cubs can, if necessary, mouth an egg without breaking it, and though Father Wolfâs jaws closed right on the childâs back not a tooth even scratched the skin, as he laid it down among the cubs.
âHow little! How naked, andâ âhow bold!â said Mother Wolf, softly. The baby was pushing his way between the cubs to get close to the warm hide. âAhai! He is taking his meal with the others. And so this is a manâs cub. Now, was there ever a wolf that could boast of a manâs cub among her children?â
âI have heard now and again of such a thing, but never in our pack or in my time,â said Father Wolf. âHe is altogether without hair, and I could kill him with a touch of my foot. But see, he looks up and is not afraid.â
The moonlight was blocked out of the mouth of the cave, for Shere Khanâs great square head and shoulders were thrust into the entrance. Tabaqui, behind him, was squeaking: âMy Lord, my Lord, it went in here!â
âShere Khan does us great honor,â said Father Wolf, but his eyes were very angry. âWhat does Shere Khan need?â
âMy quarry. A manâs cub went this way,â said Shere Khan. âIts parents have run off. Give it to me.â
Shere Khan had jumped at a woodcutterâs campfire, as Father Wolf had said, and was furious from the pain of his burned feet. But Father Wolf knew that the mouth of the cave was too narrow for a tiger to come in by. Even where he was, Shere Khanâs shoulders and fore paws were cramped for want of room, as a manâs would be if he tried to fight in a barrel.
âThe Wolves are a free people,â said Father Wolf. âThey take orders from the Head of the Pack, and not from any striped cattle-killer. The manâs cub is oursâ âto kill if we choose.â
âYe choose and ye do not choose! What talk is this of choosing? By the Bull that I killed, am I to stand nosing into your dogâs den for my fair dues? It is I, Shere Khan, who speak!â
The tigerâs roar filled the cave with thunder. Mother Wolf shook herself clear of the cubs and sprang forward, her eyes, like two green moons in the darkness, facing the blazing eyes of Shere Khan.
âAnd it is I, Raksha [the Demon], who answer. The manâs cub is mine, Lungriâ âmine to me! He shall not be killed. He shall live to run with the Pack and to hunt with the Pack; and in the end, look you, hunter of little naked cubsâ âfrog-eaterâ âfish-killer, he shall hunt thee! Now get hence, or by the Sambhur that I killed (I eat no starved cattle), back thou goest to thy mother, burned beast of the jungle, lamer than ever thou camest into the world! Go!â
Father Wolf looked on amazed. He had almost forgotten the days when he won Mother Wolf in fair fight from five other wolves, when she ran in the Pack and was not called the Demon for complimentâs sake. Shere Khan might have faced Father Wolf, but he could not stand up against Mother Wolf, for he knew that where he was she had all the advantage of the ground, and would fight to the death. So he backed out of the cave-mouth growling, and when he was clear he shouted:
âEach dog barks in his own yard! We will see what the Pack will say to this fostering of man-cubs. The cub is mine, and to my teeth he will come in the end, O bush-tailed thieves!â
Mother Wolf threw herself down panting among the cubs,
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