There was a howl of fright and rage, and then as Bagheera tripped on the rolling
kicking bodies beneath him, a monkey shouted: “There is only one here! Kill
him! Kill.” A scuffling mass of monkeys, biting, scratching, tearing, and pulling,
closed over Bagheera, while five or six laid hold of Mowgli, dragged him up the
wall of the summerhouse and pushed him through the hole of the broken dome.
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.
“Stay there,” shouted the monkeys, “till we have killed thy friends, and later
we will play with thee—if the Poison-People leave thee alive.”
“We be of one blood, ye and I,” said Mowgli, quickly giving the Snake’s Call.
He could hear rustling and hissing in the rubbish all round him and gave the Call
a second time, to make sure.
“Even ssso! Down hoods all!” said half a dozen low voices (every ruin in
India becomes sooner or later a dwelling place of snakes, and the old