from the masterpiece by
RUDYARD KIPLING illustrations by MANUELA ADREANI
Father and Mother Wolf waited until their cubs were able to run without tripping, and Mowgli could follow them both on two and on four legs without making a fool of himself. Then one full moon, they led all the cubs to Council Rock, where some one hundred wolves had gathered.
At the head of the whole pack was Akela the Lone, the big, gray wolf who had for years led his people with wisdom and strength. In the past, he had twice fallen victim to the traps of men, and so he knew them very well. For this reason, Mother Wolf was apprehensive: would the leader of the pack immediately take against Mowgli?
At the Rock, more than forty wolves had already gathered in the moonlight. They were wolves of every size and color, from the elderly, gray and expert, marked by the scars of the fighting and hunting, to the youngest, noisy and restless.
“You mentioned the Cold Lairs,” Bagheera said to the python as he galloped alongside him. “What is it? Where is it?”
“It’s a lost city, located in the center of the forest. It is just a pile of ruins, but they refer to it as their palace!”
What Kaa did not know was that, in times past, the Indian city of which nothing now remained but a few ruined buildings, had been wonderful and impressive. Some king had built it in ancient times and you could still distinguish the cobbled streets leading up to the gates, which had now almost completely collapsed.
The walls had become overgrown with bushes, wild figs and other leafy trees, from which hung thick lianas. A palace lay at the center of the city. It had once been great but was now without a roof and it was surrounded by the remains of houses, cellars and cisterns, which were once the wells that had quenched the inhabitants’ thirst.
The monkeys said that this was their city, but they did not use any of the buildings, and they did not even understand their purpose.
They slouched on what had once been a throne and picked one another’s nits. They pretended to be men, shouting and jumping here and there, until they forgot the pretense and actually ended up arguing for real. Then they peeled off pieces of plaster from the walls and threw them at one another. They hid in the dark hallway waiting to scare one other and challenged each other to leap across the tops of the cisterns with a single leap. Eventually, they tired of life in the city and returned to disturbing the forest from treetops.
The monkeys dragged Mowgli to the Cold Lairs. They got there in the afternoon, and dropped him in the center of the palace and began to jump around, dancing and laughing. One of the monkeys took it upon himself to explain to his friends that from that moment on Mowgli would be their king. Still giggling, the others hurried off to gather nuts and fruit, but on the way back one dropped a papaya which split open on the path, causing all the other monkeys to laugh. They laughed so much that they forgot about Mowgli and his hunger.
“Everything that Baloo said is true!” thought the child sadly. “They have no laws, no ritual words. I don’t understand how they can live without rules… If only I had known before how silly and annoying they can be! To think, I actually believed it possible that I could be happy with them! I have to get away. I’ll slip away right now while no one is watching me.” But when he got to the city walls, the monkeys noticed him, and caught him. To teach him to do as he was told, they carried him to the edge of a deep cistern and dropped him inside. Mowgli landed heavily at the bottom of the well. He was not badly hurt, but he was in a trap. There were cracks between the stones in the wall, but he was not able to climb up to the top of the tank and escape.
The boy sat down, wrapped his arms around his legs, and stayed there, profoundly unhappy, watching the sky, waiting for nightfall when the monkeys would fall asleep and he could try again to escape.
Outside the city wall, someone else was watching the same patch of sky. Bagheera and Kaa had reached the city, while Baloo, who had struggled to keep pace with the two companions, had soon had to slow down. The two animals were waiting for the bear, but also for the monkeys to stop their chatter and go to sleep.
More than anything, however, he liked to go off with Bagheera into the hot heart of the forest, there to snooze together in a tree, until, when night fell the panther would wake up to go hunting. On one of those perfect days, Bagheera had a new idea, born of something that he had heard, although he did not remember from whom.
He raised his handsome face from his legs and woke Mowgli. “Little brother,” he said.
“How many times have I told you that you have to fear the vengeance of Shere Khan?”
“I don’t know Bagheera, but a lot, for sure! As many times as there are dates on that palm,” Mowgli snorted, rolling his eyes. “Let me sleep!”
“This is no time to sleep, Mowgli. Even Baloo would say the same if he were here, and we both know that there is no one lazier than he is! There is something I can’t stop thinking about. There is a whispering in the forest that you cannot ignore. Akela is very old. Soon he will no longer be able to hunt and the younger wolves will compete with him to take his place. Many of the young wolves, though, have become friends with Shere Khan and they believe that you should not stay in the jungle, so…”
“How is that possible?” Mowgli interrupted indignantly. “There’s not a wolf on the council from whose paw I haven’t removed a thorn. We’re a family. They’re my brothers!”
“Not everyone thinks that way, little brother! Many think that soon you’ll be a man and you should go back to your own people.”
“And what do you think, Bagheera?”
The panther narrowed his eyes and said, “Touch me under my jaw.”
Mowgli walked over, and stroked his friend under his chin. As he did so, his fingers came upon a small strip where the thick, glossy fur that covered the rest of the neck did not grow.
“No one in the jungle knows about this scar. It is a sign of the chain, little brother. I, too, was born among men. My mother died in the cages of the royal palace. I knew nothing of the jungle nor how to hunt for food. I, Bagheera, who is now feared by the whole jungle, was a man’s toy. One night I broke the lock with a single blow and left. Mowgli, just as I went back to the jungle where I belonged, so you will eventually have to return to the world of men, otherwise, sooner or later, you will be killed during the Council.”
The plan was simple enough, but it was a good one. While the adult male buffalo, guided by Mowgli, headed for the ravine’s exit, the females, who were much more aggressive because they were concerned for their calves, were driven by Gray Brother’s nips and barks toward the entrance. Now the tiger had no way out.
When they were all in place, Mowgli cupped his hands around his mouth and called the tiger at the top of his voice. Down in the ravine, Shere Khan awoke abruptly, and roared, “Who calls my name?”
“I, Mowgli! It’s time to drag yourself to Council Rock!” yelled the boy, laughing wildly. “Gray Brother, drive them down!” he shouted, turning to the wolf. Gray Wolf started to growl, howl and nip the legs of the buffalo until the poor animals, hurt, angry, and terrified, rushed, pushing and bellowing down the steep slope.
SEEING THE TORRENT OF BLACK HORNS SURGE DOWN THE RAVINE BEFORE HIM, SHERE KHAN TURNED, ONLY TO FIND MOWGLI HURLING THE OTHER HALF OF THE HERD AT HIM FROM BEHIND. HE SUDDENLY REALIZED THERE WAS NO ESCAPE!
The charging herd swept over him.
When, after a great deal of time and effort, the herd had calmed and reunited, Mowgli managed to find the lifeless body of Shere Khan.
He sat down next to his old enemy with an inscrutable expression on his face, and it was there that the villagers found him. As soon as he saw the men, Gray Brother saluted Mowgli with a lick to his hand and disappeared. “I’ll wait in the jungle,” he said, before turning away, and when the boy saw the angry expressions of the men who were approaching, he realized that Gray Brother was right. Most likely, his life among men would end that day.
“What madness made you drive the herd down the ravine?” they asked. “What’s this tiger doing here?”
