Редьярд Кіплінг - Мауглі = Mowgli

Generations of monkeys had been scared into good behaviour by the stories their elders told them of Kaa, the night-thief, who could slip along the branches as quietly as moss grows, and steal away the strongest monkey that ever lived; of old Kaa, who could make himself look so like a dead branch or a rotten stump that the wisest were deceived, till the branch caught them. Kaa was everything that the monkeys feared in the Jungle, for none of them knew the limits of his power, none of them could look him in the face, and none had ever come alive out of his hug. And so they ran, stammering with terror, to the walls and the roofs of the houses, and Baloo drew a deep breath of relief. His fur was much thicker than Bagheera’s, but he had suffered sorely in the fight. Then Kaa opened his mouth for the first time and spoke one long hissing word, and the far-away monkeys, hurrying to the defence of the Cold Lairs, stayed where they were, cowering, till the loaded branches bent and crackled under them. The monkeys on the walls and the empty houses stopped their cries, and in the stillness that fell upon the city Mowgli heard Bagheera shaking his wet sides as he came up from the tank. Then the clamour broke out again. The monkeys leaped higher up the walls; they clung round the necks of the big stone idols and shrieked as they skipped along the battlements, while Mowgli, dancing in the summerhouse, put his eye to the screen-work and hooted owl-fashion between his front teeth, to show his derision and contempt.

‘Get the man cub out of that trap; I can do no more,’ Bagheera gasped. ‘Let us take the man cub and go. They may attack again.’

‘They will not move till I order them. Stay you sssso!’ Kaa hissed, and the city was silent once more. ‘I could not come before, Brother, but I think I heard thee call’ – this was to Bagheera.

‘I – I may have cried out in the battle,’ Bagheera answered. ‘Baloo, art thou hurt?’

‘I am not sure that they have not pulled me into a hundred little headings,’ said Baloo gravely, shaking one leg after the other. ‘ Wow ! I am sore. Kaa, we owe thee, I think, our lives – Bagheera and I.’

‘No matter. Where is the manling?’

‘Here, in a trap. I cannot climb out,’ cried Mowgli. The curve of the broken dome was above his head.

‘Take him away. He dances like Mao the Peacock. He will crush our young,’ said the cobras inside.

‘Hah!’ said Kaa, with a chuckle, ‘he has friends everywhere, this manling. Stand back, manling; and hide you, O Poison People. I break down the wall.’

Kaa looked carefully till he found a discoloured crack in the marble tracery showing a weak spot, made two or three light taps with his head to get the distance, and then, lifting up six feet of his body clear of the ground, sent home half a dozen full-power, smashing blows, nose-first. The screen-work broke and fell away in a cloud of dust and rubbish, and Mowgli leaped through the opening and flung himself between Baloo and Bagheera – an arm round each big neck.

‘Art thou hurt?’ said Baloo, hugging him softly.

‘I am sore, hungry, and not a little bruised; but, oh, they have handled ye grievously, my Brothers! Ye bleed.’

‘Others also,’ said Bagheera, licking his lips, and looking at the monkey-dead on the terrace and round the tank.

‘It is nothing, it is nothing, if thou art safe, O my pride of all little frogs!’ whimpered Baloo.

‘Of that we shall judge later,’ said Bagheera, in a dry voice that Mowgli did not at all like. ‘But here is Kaa, to whom we owe the battle and thou owest thy life. Thank him according to our customs, Mowgli.’

Mowgli turned and saw the great python’s head swaying a foot above his own.

‘So this is the manling,’ said Kaa. ‘Very soft is his skin, and he is not so unlike the Bandar-log. Have a care, manling, that I do not mistake thee for a monkey some twilight when I have newly changed my coat.’

‘We be of one blood, thou and I,’ Mowgli answered. ‘I take my life from thee, tonight. My kill shall be thy kill if ever thou art hungry, O Kaa.’

‘All thanks, Little Brother,’ said Kaa, though his eyes twinkled. ‘And what may so bold a hunter kill? I ask that I may follow when next he goes abroad.’

‘I kill nothing – I am too little – but I drive goats toward such as can use them. When thou art empty come to me and see if I speak the truth. I have some skill in these’ – he held out his hands – ‘and if ever thou art in a trap, I may pay the debt which I owe to thee, to Bagheera, and to Baloo, here. Good hunting to ye all, my masters.’

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