"Is thy stomach still empty, Outlier?" said Mowgli. Won-tolla was fearfully punished, but his grip had paralysed the dhole, who could not turn round and reach him.
"By the Bull that bought me," said Mowgli, with a bitter laugh, "it is the tailless one!" And indeed it was the big bay-coloured leader.
"It is not wise to kill cubs and lahinis," Mowgli went on philosophically, wiping the blood out of his eyes, "unless one has also killed the Outlier; and it is in my stomach that this Won-tolla kills thee."A dhole leaped to his leader's aid; but before his teeth had found Won-tolla's flank, Mowgli's knife was in his throat, and Gray Brother took what was left.
"And thus do we do in the Jungle," said Mowgli.
Won-tolla said not a word, only his jaws were closing and closing on the backbone as his life ebbed. The dhole shuddered, his head dropped, and he lay still, and Won-tolla dropped above him.
"Huh! The Blood Debt is paid," said Mowgli. "Sing the song, Won-tolla.""He hunts no more," said Gray Brother; "and Akela, too, is silent this long time.""The bone is cracked!" thundered Phao, son of Phaona. "They go!
Kill, kill out, O hunters of the Free People!"Dhole after dhole was slinking away from those dark and bloody sands to the river, to the thick Jungle, up-stream or down-stream as he saw the road clear.
"The debt! The debt!" shouted Mowgli. "Pay the debt! They have slain the Lone Wolf! Let not a dog go!"He was flying to the river, knife in hand, to check any dhole who dared to take water, when, from under a mound of nine dead, rose Akela's head and fore-quarters, and Mowgli dropped on his knees beside the Lone Wolf.
"Said I not it would be my last fight?" Akela gasped. "It is good hunting. And thou, Little Brother?""I live, having killed many."
"Even so. I die, and I would--I would die by thee, Little Brother."Mowgli took the terrible scarred head on his knees, and put his arms round the torn neck.
"It is long since the old days of Shere Khan, and a Man-cub that rolled naked in the dust.""Nay, nay, I am a wolf. I am of one skin with the Free People,"Mowgli cried. "It is no will of mine that I am a man.""Thou art a man, Little Brother, wolfling of my watching.
Thou art a man, or else the Pack had fled before the dhole.
My life I owe to thee, and to-day thou hast saved the Pack even as once I saved thee. Hast thou forgotten? All debts are paid now. Go to thine own people. I tell thee again, eye of my eye, this hunting is ended. Go to thine own people.""I will never go. I will hunt alone in the Jungle. I have said it.""After the summer come the Rains, and after the Rains comes the spring. Go back before thou art driven.""Who will drive me?"
"Mowgli will drive Mowgli. Go back to thy people. Go to Man.""When Mowgli drives Mowgli I will go," Mowgli answered.
"There is no more to say," said Akela. "Little Brother, canst thou raise me to my feet? I also was a leader of the Free People."Very carefully and gently Mowgli lifted the bodies aside, and raised Akela to his feet, both arms round him, and the Lone Wolf drew a long breath, and began the Death Song that a leader of the Pack should sing when he dies. It gathered strength as he went on, lifting and lifting, and ringing far across the river, till it came to the last "Good hunting!" and Akela shook himself clear of Mowgli for an instant, and, leaping into the air, fell backward dead upon his last and most terrible kill.
Mowgli sat with his head on his knees, careless of anything else, while the remnant of the flying dholes were being overtaken and run down by the merciless lahinis. Little by little the cries died away, and the wolves returned limping, as their wounds stiffened, to take stock of the losses.
Fifteen of the Pack, as well as half a dozen lahinis, lay dead by the river, and of the others not one was unmarked. And Mowgli sat through it all till the cold daybreak, when Phao's wet, red muzzle was dropped in his hand, and Mowgli drew back to show the gaunt body of Akela.
"Good hunting!" said Phao, as though Akela were still alive, and then over his bitten shoulder to the others: "Howl, dogs!
A Wolf has died to-night!"
But of all the Pack of two hundred fighting dholes, whose boast was that all jungles were their Jungle, and that no living thing could stand before them, not one returned to the Dekkan to carry that word.
