Balustrade and Sherlock found Shanti the Rock Python stretched out on a warm ledge in the afternoon sun, admiring her beautiful new coat, for she had been in retirement for the last ten days changing her skin, and now she was very splendid, twisting her long body into fantastic knots and curves, and licking her lips as he thought of her dinner to come.
"She has not eaten," said Balustrade, with a grunt of relief, as soon as he saw the beautiful poison-green jacket. "Be careful, Bagheera! She is always a little blind after he has changed his skin, and very quick to strike."
Shanti was not a poison snake – in fact she rather despised the poison snakes as cowards – but her strength lay in her embrace, and when she had once lapped her sinuous coils round anybody there was no more to be said. "Good hunting!" cried Baloo, sitting up on his haunches. Shanti cocked her head at the sound of her name and then curled toward the newcomers, gracious but guarded.
"Good hunting for us all," she answered. "Oho, Balustrade, what dost thou do here? Good hunting, Bagheera. One of us at least needs food. Is there any news of game afoot? A young buck? Or perhaps" – her voice stretched out as long as her body – "even a doe? I am as empty as a dried well."
"There is hunting to be done," said Baloo. He knew that you must let Shanti decide how the talking will go.
"I will be hunting to-night as well," said Shanti, "Though my hunt is a different sort of game: a long wait for the right sort of prey to cross my path, and then a calculated dance." She flicked her tongue. "I do take pleasure in the pursuit, though less so when my hunger yawns inside me, as it does now."
"You may join us, if you like," said Sherlock carelessly, for he knew it was dangerous for the Snake to know that they sought her help.
"I do not know if I like or not," answered she. "What are you hunting to-night?"
"It – it is the Bandar-log that we follow," said Baloo, but the words stuck in his throat, for that was the first time in his memory that one of the Jungle-People had owned to being interested in the doings of the monkeys.
"Is it, now." Shanti's voice became liquid. "And why do two such great hunters pursue a worthless pack of jungle scum?"
"Do you know," interjected Sherlock, "we were on their trail earlier, and we heard them speaking of you. Calling you most evil names, if I recall. Footless, yellow earth-worm, I believe it was," said the panther under his whiskers, as though he were trying to remember.
"Yes," said Baloo, catching on. "Evil, most terrible names. Very foul names."
"They shouted something of that kind at us as well, once they heard us. They will say anything – even that thou hast lost all thy teeth, and wilt not face anything bigger than a kid, because (they are indeed shameless, these Bandar-log) – because thou art afraid of the he-goat's horns," Sherlock went on sweetly. "Did you not hear of it? All the jungle is talking."
Now a snake, especially a great python like Shanti, very seldom cares what the Jungle-People say – the snakes are an ancient and wary people, and they know that many creatures speak carelessly of snakes as a way to bury their own fear. But it is one thing for a creature to say such a thing to himself, or a few others, and quite another for all the jungle to be talking of it – at least for a person like Shanti, who cared so much for her own reputation (as Sherlock had seen.) Baloo and Sherlock could see the big swallowing muscles on either side of Shanti's throat ripple before her anger came under control.
"Beyond doubt then," the Snake said courteously, when she could again speak calmly, "it is no small thing that takes two such hunters – leaders in their own jungle I am certain – on the trail of the Bandar-log."
"Indeed," Balustrade began, "I am no more than the old and sometimes very foolish Teacher of the Law to the Seeonee wolf-cubs, and Bagheera here – "
"Is Bagheera," said the Black Panther, and his jaws shut with a snap, for he did not believe in being humble. "The trouble is this, Shanti. Those nut-stealers and pickers of palm leaves have stolen away our man-cub of whom thou hast perhaps heard."
"I had indeed heard," the Snake answered, "for I hear many things..."
"Of course, everybody knows this of you," put in Sherlock.
"But I did not know whether to believe it. It is a strange tale."
"But it is true. He is such a man-cub as never was," said Baloo. "The best and wisest and boldest of man-cubs – my own pupil, who shall make the name of Balustrade famous through all the jungle."
"Do not make him out for what he is not," snapped Sherlock, who feared that Shanti would drive a very hard bargain for such a prize. "He is only a hairless cub who cannot hunt on his own."
Shanti stared at Sherlock silently until he was driven to speak again, and said:
"And I – we – love him, Shanti."
"Please," said Baloo. "Our man-cub is in the hands of the Bandar-log now, and we know that of all the Jungle-People they fear Shanti alone."
"They have good reason for it," said Shanti. "But now we come to the question: what will you give me in return?"
"In return?" asked Baloo.
The Snake stared back at him. "You said 'please' – you are asking me for a favor. I would like something in return." Her tongue flicked in what seemed to be amusement. "Surely a teacher of the Law understands."
"We can help speed your hunt," said Sherlock.
"Maybe," answered the Snake, "and maybe not. It is hard to account for the luck of the hunt."
"Well then," said Sherlock, who was now quite determined that Shanti should aid them in their search, "we will help you punish the Bandar-log for their chattering foolishness, and show the jungle what befalls those who speak ill of Shanti."
"Ssssss." Shanti hissed as she considered. "Yes, that is good. They called me – `yellow fish' was it not?"
"Worm – worm – earth-worm," said Sherlock, "as well as other things which I cannot now say for shame."
"Well," said the Snake, "we must remind them to speak well of their mistress. Help their wandering memories. Now, whither went they with the cub?"
"The jungle alone knows. Toward the sunset, I believe," said Baloo. "We had thought that thou wouldst know, Shanti."
"I? How? I take them when they come in my way, but I do not hunt the Bandar-log, or frogs – or green scum on a water-hole, for that matter."
Suddenly, there came a call: "Up, Up! Up, Up! Hillo! Illo! Illo, look up, Bagheera the panther! Look up, Balustrade of the Seeonee Wolf Pack!"
Baloo and Sherlock looked up to see where the voice came from, and there was Wiggi the Kite, sweeping down with the sun shining on the upturned flanges of his wings. It was near Wiggi's bedtime, but he had ranged all over the jungle looking for the Bear or the Panther and had missed them in the thick foliage.
"What? What is it?" said Sherlock impatiently.
"I have seen John among the Bandar-log. He bade me tell you. I watched. The Bandar-log have taken him beyond the river to the monkey city – to the Cold Lairs. They may stay there for a night, or ten nights, or an hour. I have told the bats to watch through the dark time. That is my message. Good hunting, all you below!"
"Full gorge and a deep sleep to you, Wiggi," cried Sherlock. "For that was half-way clever of you."
"It is nothing. It is nothing," said Wiggi, who knew enough of Bagheera to know that this was high praise. "The boy held the Master Word. I could have done no less. Good hunting!" And Wiggi circled up again to his roost.
"He has not forgotten to use his tongue," said Baloo with a chuckle of pride. "To think of one so young remembering the Master Word for the birds too while he was being pulled across trees!"
"It was most firmly drummed into him," said Sherlock. "But I am proud of him, and now we must go to the Cold Lairs."
They all knew where that place was, but few of the Jungle People ever went there, because what they called the Cold Lairs was an old deserted city, lost and buried in the jungle, and beasts seldom use a place that men have once used. The wild boar will, but the hunting tribes do not. Besides, the monkeys lived there as much as they could be said to live anywhere, and no self-respecting animal would come within eyeshot of it except in times of drought, when the half-ruined tanks and reservoirs held a little water.
"It is half a night's journey – at full speed," said Sherlock, and Baloo looked very serious. "I will go as fast as I can," the bear said anxiously.
"We dare not wait for thee. Follow, Baloo. We must go on the quick-foot – Shanti and I. If you will come," he said, turning to the Snake.
"Feet or no feet, I can keep abreast of all thy four," said Shanti shortly. Baloo made one effort to hurry, but had to sit down panting, and so they left him to come on later, while Sherlock hurried forward, at the quick panther-canter. Shanti said nothing, but, strive as Sherlock might, the huge Rock-python held level with him. When they came to a hill stream, Sherlock gained, because he bounded across while Shanti swam, her head and two feet of her neck clearing the water, but on level ground Shanti made up the distance.
"By my own love of the man-cub," said Sherlock, near out of breath and guarding his thoughts less than usual, "thou art no slow goer!"
"I am hungry," said Shanti. "Besides, they called me earth-crawler."
"Worm – earth-worm, and yellow to boot."
"All one. Let us go on," and Shanti seemed to pour herself along the ground, finding the shortest road with her steady eyes, and keeping to it. And twilight fell as they went.
In the Cold Lairs, the monkeys who had taken John were not thinking of John's friends at all. They had brought the boy to the Lost City, and were very much pleased with themselves for the time. John had never seen a men's city before, and though this was almost a heap of ruins it seemed very wonderful and splendid. Some king had built it long ago on a little hill. You could still trace the stone causeways that led up to the ruined gates where the last splinters of wood hung to the worn, rusted hinges. Trees had grown into and out of the walls; the battlements were tumbled down and decayed, and wild creepers hung out of the windows of the towers on the walls in bushy hanging clumps.
The monkeys called the place their city, and pretended to despise the Jungle-People because they lived in the forest, but they never knew what the buildings were made for nor how to use them. They would sit in circles on the hall of the king's council chamber, and scratch for fleas and pretend to be men; or they would play up and down the terraces of the king's garden, where they would shake the rose trees and the oranges in sport to see the fruit and flowers fall. They drank at the tanks and made the water all muddy, and then they fought over it, and then they would all rush together in mobs and shout: "There is no one in the jungle so wise and good and clever and strong and gentle as the Bandar-log." Then all would begin again till they grew tired of the city and went back to the tree-tops, hoping the Jungle-People would notice them.
Once they had arrived with John, the monkeys joined hands and danced in a circle, singing "we have taken the man-cub! He will live with us forever! Truly we are the wisest and best of all the Jungle-People." John did not understand this – for he knew very little of the Bandar-log, and nothing at all of Jayim or his designs – but he saw that the monkeys did not intend to let him leave. But John did not lose hope yet. "Perhaps they will change their minds, or forget about me," he thought to himself, "for they seem very changeable." And so he looked about himself, to see what kind of place he was now in.
He began to wander the city, even though he was tired and sore, for he was also hungry and curious. And indeed the city was quite wonderful, even in its ruined state. A great roofless palace crowned the hill, and the marble of the courtyards and the fountains was split, and stained with red and green, and the very cobblestones in the courtyard where the king's elephants used to live had been thrust up and apart by grasses and young trees. From the palace you could see the rows and rows of roofless houses that made up the city looking like empty honeycombs filled with blackness; the shapeless block of stone that had been an idol in the square where four roads met; the pits and dimples at street corners where the public wells once stood, and the shattered domes of temples with wild figs sprouting on their sides.
As John explored, he came upon groups of monkeys playing up and down the halls, or scuffling and shouting. "I wish to eat," he told them, when he got their attention. "I am a stranger to this part of the jungle. Bring me food, or give me leave to hunt here."
Each time he asked this, the monkeys would bound away to bring him nuts or wild pawpaws. But soon they would fall to fighting among themselves, and it was too much trouble for them to return with what was left of the food. Soon John was sore and angry as well as hungry, and went in search of his own food.
He roamed through the empty city giving the Strangers' Hunting Call from time to time, but no one answered him. He came upon rows of orange and fig trees, growing in and about an old garden. But he had never seen such plants before, and without Baloo to guide him, he was unsure whether they were good to eat or whether they would make him sick. At the bottom of the walk there was a great, smooth-sided palm-tree, and up at the top John could see a cluster of nuts, but John could not climb that high on his own, and Sherlock was not there to climb the tree and fetch them for him. John felt that he had reached a very bad place indeed. "All that Baloo has said about the Bandar-log is true," he thought. "They have no Law, no Hunting Call, and no leaders – nothing but foolish words and little picking thievish hands. So if I am starved or killed here, it will be all my own fault. But I must try to return to my own jungle. Sherlock will surely be angry with me, but that is better than chasing silly rose leaves with the Bandar-log."
After a great deal of wandering and turning about, John found his way to a terrace above the red sandstone reservoirs that were half-full of rain water, at the far edge of the city. There was a ruined summer-house of white marble in the center of the terrace, built for queens dead a hundred years ago. The domed roof had half fallen in and blocked up the underground passage from the palace by which the queens used to enter. But the walls were made of screens of marble tracery – beautiful milk-white fretwork, set with agates and cornelians and jasper and lapis lazuli, and as the moon came up behind the hill it shone through the open work, casting shadows on the ground like black velvet embroidery.
Here it was quieter, for the monkeys did not like to drink the water at night, for having a horror of the water-snakes that dwelt in the basins they preferred to drink only by daylight. John was still hungry, but after taking a long drink from the reservoir, he sat down on the wide sandstone ledge of the largest reservoir and listened to the noises of the deserted city, thinking about how he might get away from the monkeys.
"I knew you would find your way here," said a voice. John started to his feet and saw a single monkey coming toward him along the reservoir's edge. It was difficult to tell by moonlight, bright though it was, but John thought this was a monkey he had not seen before.
"I did not come on purpose," said John warily. "I was taken and brought here against my will, and I am a stranger to this part of the jungle. Give me leave to hunt here."
"I know well how you came here, man-cub," said the Monkey, "for it was I who caused it to be done."
John became angry at this. "Who are you?" he asked. "You must send me back!"
"I am Jayim, the King of the Bandar-log, and I must do no such thing," came the reply.
If John had been a wolf instead of a man-cub, he would not have tried to dispute with a monkey, but John said:
"The Bandar-log have no leader. Baloo my teacher told me."
Jayim chattered loudly, and John could not tell whether he was angry or only laughing. "Your teacher is behind the times, for I am the leader now. All the Monkey People do as I say, and very soon, all the Jungle-People will know of it, and tremble in fear before the cleverest and most powerful of the Bandar-log."
John now began to feel a little afraid of Jayim, and wished that he had not shouted. "It may be so," he answered. "We will talk about it again to-morrow, after I sleep, for I am tired." He saw, in the sky above, that a great cloud was about to pass in front of the moon, and he thought that if Jayim would only go away and leave him alone, he might find a way to escape from the city and return to his own part of the jungle. But Jayim did not leave – instead, he came up and took John's hands in his own, and swung him round in a mad violent dance, and crowed:
"I see your eyes on that cloud, o man-cub! Are you afraid of the dark? Do not fear, I will not leave you alone." He split his wide mouth open with chattering laughter as he whirled John faster and faster. "We will stay here and dance together, you and I, until your friends arrive."
Those friends were also watching the very same cloud from a ruined ditch below the city wall, for Sherlock and Shanti, knowing well how dangerous the Monkey-People were in large numbers, did not wish to run any risks. The monkeys never fight unless they are a hundred to one, and few in the jungle care for those odds.
"I will go around to the west wall," Shanti whispered, "and come down swiftly with the slope of the ground in my favor. They will not throw themselves upon my back in their hundreds, but – "
"I know it," said Sherlock. "Would that Baloo were here, but we must do what we can. When that cloud covers the moon I shall go to the terrace by the reservoirs. The monkeys do not like the water-snakes that live there (though they fear them less than you!) and will not gather there-abouts as they do in the palace.
"Good hunting," said Shanti grimly, and glided away to the west wall. That happened to be the least ruined of any, and the Snake was delayed awhile before she could find a way up the stones. Sherlock made one leap after another, jumping from fallen stone to ruined parapet, and landed lightly on the terrace. Looking down, he saw a strange figure he could not make out clearly, and slipped down toward the reservoir for a better look, keeping to the shadows.
As Sherlock drew closer, he saw that the strange figure was in fact two. John had long ago grown tired, and now Jayim stood with his long, hairy arms wrapped around John's waist, holding him up as they swayed slowly back and forth together.
"Look, Bagheera," the monkey called out, "we are dancing! What a grand time we are having, your man-cub and I!" He chattered suddenly, harsh and very loud, and when he spoke again his voice was very cold. "Although I think perhaps he is my man-cub, now."
Sherlock realized then that Jayim knew he was there, and there was no longer any reason to try to conceal himself, and he walked out onto the wide sandstone ledge of the reservoir.
"Oh look," said Jayim, "there you are."
"Here I am," said Sherlock. "But I do not know who you are."
"You will know me soon enough," answered Jayim.
The Panther was uncertain about what he should do next. In all of his observations of the Bandar-log he had never seen or heard one who spoke as Jayim did, and he was afraid. But he did not want John to know this, so he said:
"Give me the man-cub and we shall leave together in peace. There is no need for you to be killed to-night."
"Look above you, Bagheera," said the Monkey King. Sherlock turned his eyes up toward the terrace, and to saw hundreds of Bandar-logstaring back down at them. Looking around, he saw that dozens more were gathered in the high trees that bordered the reservoirs, hanging from the branches. Jayim had summoned them with his loud chatter, and now they stood ready to attack at his word. John saw them too, and he looked back at Sherlock, his eyes full of fear.
"So you see," Jayim went on, "it is not I who will be killed tonight."
Sherlock stared back at Jayim, cool and steady, but underneath he was now very frightened. He did not know where Shanti was, nor Baloo, and he did not know how soon they would arrive to help. It annoyed him very much, to strike a bargain with the Bandar-log (who after all did not live under the Law) but he felt he had no choice. So he said, his voice as careless as he could manage:
"Tell me what it is you want, Monkey, and I give you my word that you will have it. Only let me take the man-cub away in peace."
The Monkey King showed Sherlock all his teeth, still looking over John's shoulder. "I think I will keep him," he said. "I am not very much interested in peace."
"Run, Sherlock!" John cried out suddenly. "He means to kill you! It is too late for me – I must stay here." Jayim clapped his long-fingered hand over John's mouth, his hairy arms still tight around him, and John could say no more.
"Do not show off your foolishness," Sherlock snapped. "We leave together, and leave the vermin to their own pursuits." There was a furious hissing and shouting from the trees in response to Sherlock's speech.
"Wrong again, Bagheera," said Jayim. "The Bandar-log will not be left behind any more. It is high time the rest of the jungle noticed us, and gave us a place under the Law." The clamor in the trees became still louder as all the monkeys yelled in approbation. "You will do this for us. Otherwise, you and your man-cub will both die to-night."
"Never!" snarled Sherlock.
"Very well," said Jayim, as if he did not much care. "Balustrade has a softer heart than thee; he will surely agree when he arrives, which will be soon enough." He made a clicking noise with his mouth, and dozens of monkeys sprang down and leaped upon the panther, all at once.
John watched in horror as a scuffling mass of monkeys, biting, scratching, tearing, and pulling, closed over Sherlock. Jayim let go of John and ran closer, watching with relish as Sherlock backed and bucked and twisted and plunged under the heaps of his enemies. For the first time since he was born, Sherlock was fighting for his life.
"I must help him," John thought. And then he called aloud: "To the tank, Sherlock. Roll to the water tanks. Roll and plunge! Get to the water!"
More monkeys were pouring down from the terrace, coming to join the fight, but Sherlock heard John's cry, and it gave him new courage. At last he struck his way clear of the latest wave of attackers. In that one brief moment he met John's eyes, and then the two of them flung themselves into the reservoir.