For a few days after Mowgli laid Shere Khan's hide on the Council Rock, he stayed with Mother and Father Wolf and the four cubs at their cave. It was there one morning that Akela told him about a man with a gun who was following his trail.
Mowgli was angry. "Men have cast me out! What more do they need?"
The four cubs got ready to follow the man's scent. "We will roll his skull before noon!"
promised Gray Brother. "No!" Mowgli cried out to his wolf brothers.
"Man does not eat man!" "No? Were you not a wolf only a moment ago?" Akela asked.
Mowgli was furious. "Must I give reason for all I choose to do?" he snapped.
"Ah! There speaks a man!" muttered Bagheera. "We know that man is the wisest of all. But, sadly, he is also the most foolish." Raising his voice, he added, "Let us see what this man means to do."
The man was Buldeo. Mowgli and the wolves and Bagheera watched Buldeo as he puzzled over the trail. Soon, several farmers came along and stopped to talk to the famous hunter.
Buldeo told them he was tracking Mowgli the Devil-Child—a boy who could change himself into a wolf! He said that the people of the village had imprisoned Messua and her husband. They were the parents of the devil-child, after all. Soon they would be burned to death.
Sadly, Mowgli turned to the wolves and Bagheera. "I must look into this," he said. "The man pack will do nothing until Buldeo returns to the village. Sing to them, my brothers. Hold them here until dark!"
The wolves began to sing. The song rumbled, rose, and fell, until it died in a sort of whine. Very soon they heard the men climbing up into the branches of the trees. Buldeo began muttering charms to fend off evil spirits.
Meanwhile, Mowgli ran quickly to the village. He looked into the window of Messua's hut. Sure enough, she and her husband were bound and gagged. The door was shut fast, and four people were sitting with their backs to it.
When Mowgli climbed into the window and cut the ropes, Messua caught him to her heart. "I knew—I knew you would come," Messua sobbed.
Mowgli gritted his teeth as he saw her wounds, for she had been beaten and stoned all morning.
"Who did this?" he hissed. "There is a price to pay."
Messua's husband said, "All the villagers did. They were jealous because I was too rich. Now they are saying that we are witches—because we called you our son."
Mowgli heard shouting from outside the hut. He knew that Buldeo had returned.
Mowgli pointed to the window. "There lies the road through the jungle. You two go now!"
"But we know nothing of the jungle, my son!" Messua cried out in fear.
Her husband added, "If we could reach Khanhiwara, we may find the English—"
"And what pack are they?" said Mowgli.
"It is said that they govern all the land," Messua explained. "They will not let people burn or beat each other without witnesses. If we can get there tonight, we will live."
"Go to Khanhiwara, then," Mowgli said. "Not a tooth in the jungle will be bared against you. There will be a watch about you."
Messua flung herself at Mowgli's neck and held him. Her husband said, "If we reach Khanhiwara, I will get the ear of the English. Then I will bring such a lawsuit that will eat this village to the bone! I will have great justice."
Mowgli said, "I do not know what justice is— but if you come back at the next rains, you will see what is left here."
Messua and her husband hurried off into the jungle. Just then Bagheera appeared in the hut.
"Soon, the villagers will come to put the woman and her man into the Red Flower," Mowgli told him.
"But look, Bagheera—they have disappeared!"
Bagheera said, "Pah! This place stinks of Man. But look—here is a bed like the one I lay on in the king's cages of Oodeypore."
The great panther lay down on a cot, cracking it beneath his weight. "Come and sit beside me, Little Brother," he said.
"No," said Mowgli. "The man pack must not know I was part of this."
"Be it so," Bagheera replied. Then the man-cub and the panther heard the villagers yelling. They were rushing up the street, waving clubs and knives. In a moment, the crowd tore open the door of the hut and stormed inside.
When the light of their torches shone in the room, they saw the great panther lying on the bed. There was a moment of awful silence. The people in the front of the crowd began to claw and tear their way back to the door. Bagheera yawned. The next minute the street was empty.
Bagheera leaped out the window where Mowgli was waiting. "They will not stir again until daylight comes," he said. "And now?"
"I wish to see Hathi," said Mowgli. "Have him come here with his three sons."
"But Little Brother," Bagheera explained, "remember that Hathi is master of the jungle. One does not say, 'come' and 'go' to him!"
"Tell him to come because of what happened on the fields of Bhurtpore," Mowgli said firmly.
Bagheera was not gone long. When he returned, Hathi and his three sons were right behind him.
Mowgli said, "I will tell you a tale of an elephant. It was told to me by a hunter, Buldeo—who sometimes speaks the truth. One day this elephant fell into a trap. A stake in the pit scarred him from above his heel to the shoulder."
Hathi quickly wheeled around and showed his long, white scar.
Mowgli went on, "Men came to take him from the trap, but he broke loose, for he was strong. When his wound was healed, he came back to the fields of these hunters, to the fields of Bhurtpore. There was never a harvest in those villages again.
"You know the village that cast me out? They would throw their own breed into the Red Flower. I hate them!"
"But I have no quarrel with them," said Hathi.
"But Hathi, are you the only eaters of grass in the jungle?" said Mowgli. "Drive in the deer and the pig. Let in the jungle, Hathi!"
Hathi thought about it. "Do you promise there will be no killing? My tusks were red at the fields of Bhurtpore. I would not wake that smell again."
"Nor I," said Mowgli. "I have smelled the blood of the woman who gave me food. I tell you, Hathi— only the smell of new grass on their doorsteps can take away that smell."
"Now I see," Hathi said. "Yes, Mowgli—your war shall be our war. We will let in the jungle."
Soon a rumor went through the jungle that there was good food and water in the valley. The pigs came first, then the deer and foxes and wild buffalo. They formed a circle around the village, the Eaters of Flesh driving them forward.
Later that night Hathi and his sons stamped through the village fields. They were quickly followed by the deer and pigs. When the villagers looked out the next morning, their crops were lost. And when the village herds were sent out, they found the grazing grounds smooth and bare. Soon they wandered off and joined the wild buffalo.
The villagers tried to hang on, eating what little food was left. They sent men out to gather nuts in the jungle, but the nut gatherers were always watched by shadows with glaring eyes. Soon the men scurried back, afraid, to the safety of the village walls.
Finally, there was nothing to do but leave. As the last family walked out the village gate, they heard the crash of falling house beams. Hathi and his sons were running down the empty streets, kicking and tearing and trampling. One by one the walls crumbled under their feet and turned to yellow mud in the pouring rain.
A month later, the village was nothing but a dirt mound, covered by shoots of young green grass. By the end of the rains, a dense jungle had arisen on the spot where the snug homes and rich fields had been.