In the final scene, after Boone's defeat, Bagheera is seen crossing a bridge with Kitty and a triumphant Mowgli while reuniting with the British Army sent out by Colonel Brydon, who was successfully cured from his injuries by Dr. Plumford who also manages to cure Baloo , to find them.
Ben Kingsley voices the CG character in the live-action film. In an interview with Ben Kingsley regarding his portrayal of Bagheera, Kingsley describes Bagheera as Mowgli's adoptive parent, saying that his role in Mowgli's life is "to educate, to protect and to guide".
Kingsley further describes Bagheera as being analogous to military in his personality, specifically a Colonel; saying that "he's instantly recognizable by the way that he talks, how he acts, and what his ethical code is".
In this film, Bagheera plays the role of Mowgli's mentor and rescues him after Shere Khan kills the boy's father. He is continually protecting Mowgli and teaches him to be a creature of the jungle and a member of the wolf pack led by Akela.
When Shere Khan threatens Mowgli's life, Bagheera agrees to guide him to the man-village where he can safely live with other humans. However, en route, Shere Khan ambushes them. Bagheera fights with Shere Khan and though he is beaten and mildly injured by the tiger, he gives Mowgli enough time to escape. They do not reunite again until much later, when Mowgli is helping Baloo gather honey in repayment for Baloo saving him from the python, Kaa and announces he wishes to stay with Baloo, much to Bagheera's disappointment.
Bagheera later speaks with Baloo and after explaining the boy's predicament and tells Baloo to lie to Mowgli and tell him they were never friends so as to ensure he ends up living in the man-village.
However, before this plan can be implemented, a group of monkeys led by the Gigantopithecus King Louie, abduct Mowgli to try to learn of the secret of fire. Working together, Bagheera and Baloo fight off the monkeys long enough for Mowgli to hide from King Louie, and the resulting chase causes in the ape king's presumed demise. After word of the death of Akela by Shere Khan's hand reaches Mowgli, the boy is furious with Bagheera and Baloo for keeping the news from him.
He then runs away and steals a burning torch from the man-village accidentally starting a forest fire in the process , and returns to the jungle to avenge Akela. Bagheera helps Baloo and the wolf pack fight Shere Khan long enough to allow Mowgli to set a trap for the tiger, which allows Mowgli to lure him over a fiery pit into which he falls to his death. After, Bagheera is last seen sitting with Baloo and Mowgli, who has found his true home in the jungle.
The portrayal of Bagheera as well as Ben Kingsley's voice acting were praised in the film. Rotten Tomatoes top critic James Berardinelli stated: "Ben Kingsley brings the appropriate level of gravitas to the strait-laced Bagheera". Todd VanDerWerff from Vox gave Bagheera the top spot on a ranking of all the talking animals from the film from best to worst stating: "By the very nature of the story, Bagheera has to be sidelined for a time — so that Mowgli is forced to confront the dangers of the jungle alone — but this version of the tale really made me feel the cat's absence.
That's a good sign" "-any iteration of The Jungle Book is only as good as its Bagheera. He's the concerned parent, worried about what his child will find around the next corner, the big cat who knows he has to let go just a little but can't find it in himself to do so".
Harman Patil Editor I love reading books and watching sci fi flicks. Updated on Nov 11, Edit Like Comment Share.
Contents Bagheera How to draw bagheera from jungle book Character history Media portrayals Disney animated versions Disney live action film Disney live action film Reception Other media References. Who can trust the Bandar-log? Put dead bats on my head! Give me black bones to eat! Roll me into the hives of the wild bees that I may be stung to death, and bury me with the Hyaena, for I am most miserable of bears!
O Mowgli, Mowgli! Why did I not warn thee against the Monkey-Folk instead of breaking thy head? What would the jungle think if I, the Black Panther, curled myself up like Ikki the Porcupine, and howled?
He is wise and well taught, and above all he has the eyes that make the Jungle-People afraid. But and it is a great evil he is in the power of the Bandar-log, and they, because they live in trees, have no fear of any of our people.
He can climb as well as they can. He steals the young monkeys in the night. The whisper of his name makes their wicked tails cold. Let us go to Kaa. He may be asleep now, and even were he awake what if he would rather kill his own goats? They found him stretched out on a warm ledge in the afternoon sun, admiring his beautiful new coat, for he had been in retirement for the last ten days changing his skin, and now he was very splendid—darting his big blunt-nosed head along the ground, and twisting the thirty feet of his body into fantastic knots and curves, and licking his lips as he thought of his dinner to come.
He is always a little blind after he has changed his skin, and very quick to strike. Kaa was not a poison snake—in fact he rather despised the poison snakes as cowards—but his strength lay in his hug, and when he had once lapped his huge coils round anybody there was no more to be said. Like all snakes of his breed Kaa was rather deaf, and did not hear the call at first. Then he curled up ready for any accident, his head lowered.
Good hunting, Bagheera. One of us at least needs food. Is there any news of game afoot? A doe now, or even a young buck? I am as empty as a dried well. He knew that you must not hurry Kaa. He is too big. The branches are not what they were when I was young. Rotten twigs and dry boughs are they all. I came very near to falling on my last hunt—very near indeed—and the noise of my slipping, for my tail was not tight wrapped around the tree, waked the Bandar-log, and they called me most evil names.
Those nut-stealers and pickers of palm leaves have stolen away our man-cub of whom thou hast perhaps heard. Ikki is full of stories half heard and very badly told.
But a man-thing in their hands is in no good luck. They grow tired of the nuts they pick, and throw them down. They carry a branch half a day, meaning to do great things with it, and then they snap it in two. That man-thing is not to be envied. We must help their wandering memories. Now, whither went they with the cub? 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.
Up, Up! Illo, look up, Baloo of the Seeonee Wolf Pack! Baloo looked up to see where the voice came from, and there was Rann the Kite, sweeping down with the sun shining on the upturned flanges of his wings. 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! It is nothing. The boy held the Master Word. 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. Follow, Baloo. We must go on the quick-foot—Kaa and I. Baloo made one effort to hurry, but had to sit down panting, and so they left him to come on later, while Bagheera hurried forward, at the quick panther-canter.
Kaa said nothing, but, strive as Bagheera might, the huge Rock-python held level with him. When they came to a hill stream, Bagheera gained, because he bounded across while Kaa swam, his head and two feet of his neck clearing the water, but on level ground Kaa made up the distance. They had brought the boy to the Lost City, and were very much pleased with themselves for the time. Mowgli had never seen an Indian 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. 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.
The monkeys called the place their city, and pretended to despise the Jungle-People because they lived in the forest. And yet they never knew what the buildings were made for nor how to use them.
They explored all the passages and dark tunnels in the palace and the hundreds of little dark rooms, but they never remembered what they had seen and what they had not; and so drifted about in ones and twos or crowds telling each other that they were doing as men did.
Mowgli, who had been trained under the Law of the Jungle, did not like or understand this kind of life. The monkeys dragged him into the Cold Lairs late in the afternoon, and instead of going to sleep, as Mowgli would have done after a long journey, they joined hands and danced about and sang their foolish songs.
Bring me food, or give me leave to hunt here. Twenty or thirty monkeys bounded away to bring him nuts and wild pawpaws. But they fell to fighting on the road, and it was too much trouble to go back with what was left of the fruit.
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. Baloo will surely beat me, but that is better than chasing silly rose leaves with the Bandar-log. No sooner had he walked to the city wall than the monkeys pulled him back, telling him that he did not know how happy he was, and pinching him to make him grateful.
He set his teeth and said nothing, but went with the shouting monkeys to a terrace above the red sandstone reservoirs that were half-full of rain water. 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.
Sore, sleepy, and hungry as he was, Mowgli could not help laughing when the Bandar-log began, twenty at a time, to tell him how great and wise and strong and gentle they were, and how foolish he was to wish to leave them. We are free.
We are wonderful. We are the most wonderful people in all the jungle! Certainly this is dewanee, the madness. Do they never go to sleep? Now there is a cloud coming to cover that moon. If it were only a big enough cloud I might try to run away in the darkness. But I am tired. That same cloud was being watched by two good friends in the ruined ditch below the city wall, for Bagheera and Kaa, 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. When that cloud covers the moon I shall go to the terrace. They hold some sort of council there over the boy. That happened to be the least ruined of any, and the big snake was delayed awhile before he could find a way up the stones.
The Black Panther had raced up the slope almost without a sound and was striking—he knew better than to waste time in biting—right and left among the monkeys, who were seated round Mowgli in circles fifty and sixty deep. Kill him! A man-trained boy would have been badly bruised, for the fall was a good fifteen feet, but Mowgli fell as Baloo had taught him to fall, and landed on his feet. He could hear rustling and hissing in the rubbish all round him and gave the Call a second time, to make sure.
Down hoods all! For the first time since he was born, Bagheera was fighting for his life. Roll to the water tanks. Roll and plunge! Get to the water! Bagheera heard, and the cry that told him Mowgli was safe gave him new courage. He worked his way desperately, inch by inch, straight for the reservoirs, halting in silence. Then from the ruined wall nearest the jungle rose up the rumbling war-shout of Baloo.
The old Bear had done his best, but he could not come before. I climb! I haste! The stones slip under my feet! Wait my coming, O most infamous Bandar-log! A crash and a splash told Mowgli that Bagheera had fought his way to the tank where the monkeys could not follow. The Panther lay gasping for breath, his head just out of the water, while the monkeys stood three deep on the red steps, dancing up and down with rage, ready to spring upon him from all sides if he came out to help Baloo.
Even Baloo, half smothered under the monkeys on the edge of the terrace, could not help chuckling as he heard the Black Panther asking for help. Kaa had only just worked his way over the west wall, landing with a wrench that dislodged a coping stone into the ditch. He had no intention of losing any advantage of the ground, and coiled and uncoiled himself once or twice, to be sure that every foot of his long body was in working order.
All that while the fight with Baloo went on, and the monkeys yelled in the tank round Bagheera, and Mang the Bat, flying to and fro, carried the news of the great battle over the jungle, till even Hathi the Wild Elephant trumpeted, and, far away, scattered bands of the Monkey-Folk woke and came leaping along the tree-roads to help their comrades in the Cold Lairs, and the noise of the fight roused all the day birds for miles round.
Then Kaa came straight, quickly, and anxious to kill. The fighting strength of a python is in the driving blow of his head backed by all the strength and weight of his body. If you can imagine a lance, or a battering ram, or a hammer weighing nearly half a ton driven by a cool, quiet mind living in the handle of it, you can roughly imagine what Kaa was like when he fought.
A python four or five feet long can knock a man down if he hits him fairly in the chest, and Kaa was thirty feet long, as you know. His first stroke was delivered into the heart of the crowd round Baloo. It was sent home with shut mouth in silence, and there was no need of a second. It is Kaa! Generations of monkeys had been scared into good behavior 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. Then Kaa opened his mouth for the first time and spoke one long hissing word, and the far-away monkeys, hurrying to the defense 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 clamor broke out again. The monkeys leaped higher up the walls. They clung around 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 screenwork and hooted owl-fashion between his front teeth, to show his derision and contempt.
They may attack again. Stay you sssso! I am sore. Kaa, we owe thee, I think, our lives—Bagheera and I. The curve of the broken dome was above his head. He dances like Mao the Peacock. Stand back, manling. And hide you, O Poison People. I break down the wall. Kaa looked carefully till he found a discolored 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 around each big neck. But, oh, they have handled ye grievously, my Brothers! Ye bleed. Thank him according to our customs, Mowgli. Have a care, manling, that I do not mistake thee for a monkey some twilight when I have newly changed my coat. My kill shall be thy kill if ever thou art hungry, O Kaa.
I ask that I may follow when next he goes abroad. 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. But now go hence quickly with thy friends.
Go and sleep, for the moon sets, and what follows it is not well that thou shouldst see. The moon was sinking behind the hills and the lines of trembling monkeys huddled together on the walls and battlements looked like ragged shaky fringes of things. Begins now the dance—the Dance of the Hunger of Kaa. Sit still and watch. He turned twice or thrice in a big circle, weaving his head from right to left.
Then he began making loops and figures of eight with his body, and soft, oozy triangles that melted into squares and five-sided figures, and coiled mounds, never resting, never hurrying, and never stopping his low humming song. It grew darker and darker, till at last the dragging, shifting coils disappeared, but they could hear the rustle of the scales.
Baloo and Bagheera stood still as stone, growling in their throats, their neck hair bristling, and Mowgli watched and wondered. The lines of the monkeys swayed forward helplessly, and Baloo and Bagheera took one stiff step forward with them.
Mowgli laid his hands on Baloo and Bagheera to get them away, and the two great beasts started as though they had been waked from a dream. And his nose was all sore. Neither Baloo nor Bagheera will be able to hunt with pleasure for many days. For, remember, Mowgli, I, who am the Black Panther, was forced to call upon Kaa for protection, and Baloo and I were both made stupid as little birds by the Hunger Dance.
All this, man-cub, came of thy playing with the Bandar-log. But remember, Bagheera, he is very little. But he has done mischief, and blows must be dealt now.
Mowgli, hast thou anything to say? When it was all over Mowgli sneezed, and picked himself up without a word. One of the beauties of Jungle Law is that punishment settles all scores. There is no nagging afterward.
Now we must go back to the first tale. So he hurried on, keeping to the rough road that ran down the valley, and followed it at a steady jog-trot for nearly twenty miles, till he came to a country that he did not know. The valley opened out into a great plain dotted over with rocks and cut up by ravines. At one end stood a little village, and at the other the thick jungle came down in a sweep to the grazing-grounds, and stopped there as though it had been cut off with a hoe.
All over the plain, cattle and buffaloes were grazing, and when the little boys in charge of the herds saw Mowgli they shouted and ran away, and the yellow pariah dogs that hang about every Indian village barked. Mowgli walked on, for he was feeling hungry, and when he came to the village gate he saw the big thorn-bush that was drawn up before the gate at twilight, pushed to one side.
The man stared, and ran back up the one street of the village shouting for the priest, who was a big, fat man dressed in white, with a red and yellow mark on his forehead. The priest came to the gate, and with him at least a hundred people, who stared and talked and shouted and pointed at Mowgli. They are the bites of wolves.
He is but a wolf-child run away from the jungle. Of course, in playing together, the cubs had often nipped Mowgli harder than they intended, and there were white scars all over his arms and legs. But he would have been the last person in the world to call these bites, for he knew what real biting meant.
He is a handsome boy. He has eyes like red fire. By my honor, Messua, he is not unlike thy boy that was taken by the tiger. He is thinner, but he has the very look of my boy. The priest was a clever man, and he knew that Messua was wife to the richest villager in the place. Take the boy into thy house, my sister, and forget not to honor the priest who sees so far into the lives of men.
Well, if I am a man, a man I must become. The crowd parted as the woman beckoned Mowgli to her hut, where there was a red lacquered bedstead, a great earthen grain chest with funny raised patterns on it, half a dozen copper cooking pots, an image of a Hindu god in a little alcove, and on the wall a real looking glass, such as they sell at the country fairs.
She gave him a long drink of milk and some bread, and then she laid her hand on his head and looked into his eyes; for she thought perhaps that he might be her real son come back from the jungle where the tiger had taken him. Mowgli was uneasy, because he had never been under a roof before.
But as he looked at the thatch, he saw that he could tear it out any time if he wanted to get away, and that the window had no fastenings. Now I am as silly and dumb as a man would be with us in the jungle. I must speak their talk. It was not for fun that he had learned while he was with the wolves to imitate the challenge of bucks in the jungle and the grunt of the little wild pig. So, as soon as Messua pronounced a word Mowgli would imitate it almost perfectly, and before dark he had learned the names of many things in the hut.
There was a difficulty at bedtime, because Mowgli would not sleep under anything that looked so like a panther trap as that hut, and when they shut the door he went through the window.
If he is indeed sent in the place of our son he will not run away. So Mowgli stretched himself in some long, clean grass at the edge of the field, but before he had closed his eyes a soft gray nose poked him under the chin. Thou smellest of wood smoke and cattle—altogether like a man already.
Wake, Little Brother; I bring news. Now, listen. Shere Khan has gone away to hunt far off till his coat grows again, for he is badly singed. When he returns he swears that he will lay thy bones in the Waingunga. I also have made a little promise. But news is always good. I am tired to-night,—very tired with new things, Gray Brother,—but bring me the news always.
Men will not make thee forget? I will always remember that I love thee and all in our cave. But also I will always remember that I have been cast out of the Pack. Men are only men, Little Brother, and their talk is like the talk of frogs in a pond. When I come down here again, I will wait for thee in the bamboos at the edge of the grazing-ground.
For three months after that night Mowgli hardly ever left the village gate, he was so busy learning the ways and customs of men. First he had to wear a cloth round him, which annoyed him horribly; and then he had to learn about money, which he did not in the least understand, and about plowing, of which he did not see the use.
Then the little children in the village made him very angry. Luckily, the Law of the Jungle had taught him to keep his temper, for in the jungle life and food depend on keeping your temper; but when they made fun of him because he would not play games or fly kites, or because he mispronounced some word, only the knowledge that it was unsportsmanlike to kill little naked cubs kept him from picking them up and breaking them in two.
He did not know his own strength in the least. In the jungle he knew he was weak compared with the beasts, but in the village people said that he was as strong as a bull. And Mowgli had not the faintest idea of the difference that caste makes between man and man. That was very shocking, too, for the potter is a low-caste man, and his donkey is worse.
No one was more pleased than Mowgli; and that night, because he had been appointed a servant of the village, as it were, he went off to a circle that met every evening on a masonry platform under a great fig-tree. It was the village club, and the head-man and the watchman and the barber, who knew all the gossip of the village, and old Buldeo, the village hunter, who had a Tower musket, met and smoked.
The monkeys sat and talked in the upper branches, and there was a hole under the platform where a cobra lived, and he had his little platter of milk every night because he was sacred; and the old men sat around the tree and talked, and pulled at the big huqas the water-pipes till far into the night.
They told wonderful tales of gods and men and ghosts; and Buldeo told even more wonderful ones of the ways of beasts in the jungle, till the eyes of the children sitting outside the circle bulged out of their heads.
Most of the tales were about animals, for the jungle was always at their door. The deer and the wild pig grubbed up their crops, and now and again the tiger carried off a man at twilight, within sight of the village gates.
It is the jungle brat, is it? Better still, talk not when thy elders speak. Mowgli rose to go. How, then, shall I believe the tales of ghosts and gods and goblins which he says he has seen? The custom of most Indian villages is for a few boys to take the cattle and buffaloes out to graze in the early morning, and bring them back at night.
The very cattle that would trample a white man to death allow themselves to be banged and bullied and shouted at by children that hardly come up to their noses. So long as the boys keep with the herds they are safe, for not even the tiger will charge a mob of cattle. But if they straggle to pick flowers or hunt lizards, they are sometimes carried off. Mowgli went through the village street in the dawn, sitting on the back of Rama, the great herd bull.
The slaty-blue buffaloes, with their long, backward-sweeping horns and savage eyes, rose out their byres, one by one, and followed him, and Mowgli made it very clear to the children with him that he was the master. He beat the buffaloes with a long, polished bamboo, and told Kamya, one of the boys, to graze the cattle by themselves, while he went on with the buffaloes, and to be very careful not to stray away from the herd.
An Indian grazing ground is all rocks and scrub and tussocks and little ravines, among which the herds scatter and disappear. The buffaloes generally keep to the pools and muddy places, where they lie wallowing or basking in the warm mud for hours.
What is the meaning of this cattle-herding work? What news of Shere Khan? Now he has gone off again, for the game is scarce. But he means to kill thee. When he comes back wait for me in the ravine by the dhak tree in the center of the plain.
Then Mowgli picked out a shady place, and lay down and slept while the buffaloes grazed round him. Herding in India is one of the laziest things in the world. The cattle move and crunch, and lie down, and move on again, and they do not even low. They only grunt, and the buffaloes very seldom say anything, but get down into the muddy pools one after another, and work their way into the mud till only their noses and staring china-blue eyes show above the surface, and then they lie like logs.
The sun makes the rocks dance in the heat, and the herd children hear one kite never any more whistling almost out of sight overhead, and they know that if they died, or a cow died, that kite would sweep down, and the next kite miles away would see him drop and follow, and the next, and the next, and almost before they were dead there would be a score of hungry kites come out of nowhere.
Then they sleep and wake and sleep again, and weave little baskets of dried grass and put grasshoppers in them; or catch two praying mantises and make them fight; or string a necklace of red and black jungle nuts; or watch a lizard basking on a rock, or a snake hunting a frog near the wallows.
Then evening comes and the children call, and the buffaloes lumber up out of the sticky mud with noises like gunshots going off one after the other, and they all string across the gray plain back to the twinkling village lights.
If Shere Khan had made a false step with his lame paw up in the jungles by the Waingunga, Mowgli would have heard him in those long, still mornings. At last a day came when he did not see Gray Brother at the signal place, and he laughed and headed the buffaloes for the ravine by the dhk tree, which was all covered with golden-red flowers.
There sat Gray Brother, every bristle on his back lifted. Mowgli frowned. Now he is telling all his wisdom to the kites, but he told me everything before I broke his back. He is lying up now, in the big dry ravine of the Waingunga. Remember, Shere Khan could never fast, even for the sake of revenge. Fool, fool! Eaten and drunk too, and he thinks that I shall wait till he has slept!
Now, where does he lie up? If there were but ten of us we might pull him down as he lies. These buffaloes will not charge unless they wind him, and I cannot speak their language. Can we get behind his track so that they may smell it? He would never have thought of it alone.
That opens out on the plain not half a mile from here. I can take the herd round through the jungle to the head of the ravine and then sweep down—but he would slink out at the foot. We must block that end. Gray Brother, canst thou cut the herd in two for me? Then there lifted up a huge gray head that Mowgli knew well, and the hot air was filled with the most desolate cry of all the jungle—the hunting howl of a wolf at midday.
We have a big work in hand. Cut the herd in two, Akela. Keep the cows and calves together, and the bulls and the plow buffaloes by themselves. In one, the cow-buffaloes stood with their calves in the center, and glared and pawed, ready, if a wolf would only stay still, to charge down and trample the life out of him.
In the other, the bulls and the young bulls snorted and stamped, but though they looked more imposing they were much less dangerous, for they had no calves to protect. No six men could have divided the herd so neatly. Gray Brother, when we are gone, hold the cows together, and drive them into the foot of the ravine. They charged down on him, and he ran just before them to the foot of the ravine, as Akela drove the bulls far to the left.
Another charge and they are fairly started. Careful, now—careful, Akela. A snap too much and the bulls will charge. This is wilder work than driving black-buck. Didst thou think these creatures could move so swiftly? Swiftly turn them! Rama is mad with rage. Oh, if I could only tell him what I need of him to-day.
The bulls were turned, to the right this time, and crashed into the standing thicket. The other herd children, watching with the cattle half a mile away, hurried to the village as fast as their legs could carry them, crying that the buffaloes had gone mad and run away.
All he wanted to do was to make a big circle uphill and get at the head of the ravine, and then take the bulls down it and catch Shere Khan between the bulls and the cows; for he knew that after a meal and a full drink Shere Khan would not be in any condition to fight or to clamber up the sides of the ravine.
He was soothing the buffaloes now by voice, and Akela had dropped far to the rear, only whimpering once or twice to hurry the rear-guard. It was a long, long circle, for they did not wish to get too near the ravine and give Shere Khan warning. At last Mowgli rounded up the bewildered herd at the head of the ravine on a grassy patch that sloped steeply down to the ravine itself.
From that height you could see across the tops of the trees down to the plain below; but what Mowgli looked at was the sides of the ravine, and he saw with a great deal of satisfaction that they ran nearly straight up and down, while the vines and creepers that hung over them would give no foothold to a tiger who wanted to get out.
Let them breathe. I must tell Shere Khan who comes. We have him in the trap. He put his hands to his mouth and shouted down the ravine—it was almost like shouting down a tunnel—and the echoes jumped from rock to rock. After a long time there came back the drawling, sleepy snarl of a full-fed tiger just wakened. Cattle thief, it is time to come to the Council Rock!
Down—hurry them down, Akela! Down, Rama, down! The herd paused for an instant at the edge of the slope, but Akela gave tongue in the full hunting-yell, and they pitched over one after the other, just as steamers shoot rapids, the sand and stones spurting up round them.
Once started, there was no chance of stopping, and before they were fairly in the bed of the ravine Rama winded Shere Khan and bellowed. They knew what the business was before them—the terrible charge of the buffalo herd against which no tiger can hope to stand. Shere Khan heard the thunder of their hoofs, picked himself up, and lumbered down the ravine, looking from side to side for some way of escape, but the walls of the ravine were straight and he had to hold on, heavy with his dinner and his drink, willing to do anything rather than fight.
The herd splashed through the pool he had just left, bellowing till the narrow cut rang. Mowgli heard an answering bellow from the foot of the ravine, saw Shere Khan turn the tiger knew if the worst came to the worst it was better to meet the bulls than the cows with their calves , and then Rama tripped, stumbled, and went on again over something soft, and, with the bulls at his heels, crashed full into the other herd, while the weaker buffaloes were lifted clean off their feet by the shock of the meeting.
That charge carried both herds out into the plain, goring and stamping and snorting. Break them up. Scatter them, or they will be fighting one another. Drive them away, Akela. Hai, Rama!
Hai, hai, hai! Softly now, softly! It is all over. Shere Khan needed no more trampling. He was dead, and the kites were coming for him already. His hide will look well on the Council Rock. We must get to work swiftly.
But it was hard work, and Mowgli slashed and tore and grunted for an hour, while the wolves lolled out their tongues, or came forward and tugged as he ordered them. Presently a hand fell on his shoulder, and looking up he saw Buldeo with the Tower musket. The children had told the village about the buffalo stampede, and Buldeo went out angrily, only too anxious to correct Mowgli for not taking better care of the herd.
The wolves dropped out of sight as soon as they saw the man coming. Where did the buffaloes kill him? It is the Lame Tiger too, and there is a hundred rupees on his head. Well, well, we will overlook thy letting the herd run off, and perhaps I will give thee one of the rupees of the reward when I have taken the skin to Khanhiwara.
Now it is in my mind that I need the skin for my own use. Old man, take away that fire! Thy luck and the stupidity of thy buffaloes have helped thee to this kill. This quiz is incomplete!
To play this quiz, please finish editing it. Delete Quiz. Question 1. Female Wolf. Who is the author of the book? He feels his words are worthless. He does not express his thoughts beautifully. He fears the others will not understand him. What do Baloo and Bagheera have in common? Read this sentence from The Jungle Book: Father Wolf taught his his business and the meaning of things in the jungle, till every rustle in the grass, every breath of the warm night air, every note of the owls above his head, every scratch of bat's claws as it roosted for a while in a tree, and every splash of every little fish jumping in a pool, meant just as much to his as the work of his office means to a business man.
How far did Mowgli walk away from the jungle before he found the village? What do we learn about Mowgli's personality in Chapter 3?
He acts wildly when confronted by enemies. He does not display his anger when confronted by his enemies. He likes playing games and flying kites with the children. He thinks man cubs are smart.
When Gray Brother comments that it might be possible man village will throw him out the way the pack did, this might be which literary technique? The town people said Mowgli was "as strong as a bull. The towns people and Mowgli do not get along because:.
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