Now Rann the Kite brings
         home the night
    That Mang
           the Bat sets free
          --
    The herds
        are shut
               in byre and hut
    For loosed
         till dawn are we.
    This is the hour
           of pride and power,
    Talon and tush and claw.
    Oh,
           hear the call!

    --Good hunting all

    That keep the Jungle Law!

    Night-Song in the Jungle

    It was seven o'clock
           of a very warm
         evening in the Seeonee hills
         when Father Wolf
            woke up
                   from his day's rest,
           scratched himself,
         yawned,
           and spread
               out his paws one
              after the other to get
             rid of the sleepy
                  feeling in their tips.

    Mother Wolf lay
           with her big gray nose
          dropped across her four tumbling,
           squealing cubs,
         and the moon
              shone into the mouth
                   of the cave
             where they all lived.

    "Augrh!"

    said Father Wolf.

    "It is time
          to hunt again."

    He was
          going to spring down hill
         when a little shadow
               with a bushy tail
             crossed the threshold and whined:
         "Good luck go with you,
               O Chief of the Wolves.

    And good luck
           and strong white teeth
          go with noble children
         that they
            may never
                  forget the hungry
                       in this world."

    It was the jackal
         --Tabaqui,
               the Dish-licker--
           and the wolves of India
              despise Tabaqui
             because he runs
                   about making mischief,
           and telling tales,
         and eating rags
               and pieces of leather
             from the village rubbish-heaps.

    But they
        are afraid of him too,
           because Tabaqui,
         more than anyone else
               in the jungle,
           is apt to go mad,
         and then
             he forgets
               that he
                was ever afraid of anyone,
           and runs through the forest
              biting everything in his way.

    Even the tiger runs
           and hides
         when little Tabaqui goes mad,
           for madness
            is the most disgraceful thing
             that can overtake
                   a wild creature.

    We call it hydrophobia,
           but they call it dewanee
         --the madness--
            and run.

    "Enter,
           then,
         and look,"
            said Father Wolf stiffly,
               "but there is
                   no food here."

    "For a wolf,
           no,"
          said Tabaqui,
               "but for so
                  mean a person
                       as myself a dry bone
                is a good feast.

    Who are we,
           the Gidur-log
         [the jackal people],
               to pick and choose?"

    He scuttled
           to the back
               of the cave,
           where he found
               the bone of a buck
                   with some meat
                 on it,
         and sat
              cracking the end merrily.

    "All thanks
           for this good meal,"
         he said,
           licking his lips.

    "How beautiful
        are the noble children!

    How large are their eyes!

    And so young too!

    Indeed,
           indeed,
         I might have remembered
             that the children of kings
                are men from the beginning."

    Now,
           Tabaqui knew
               as well
             as anyone else
             that there is nothing
                   so unlucky
                 as to compliment children
                       to their faces.

    It pleased him
          to see Mother
               and Father Wolf look uncomfortable.

    Tabaqui sat still,
           rejoicing in the mischief
             that he had made,
         and then he said spitefully:

    "Shere Khan,
           the Big One,
         has shifted his hunting grounds.

    He will
          hunt among these hills
               for the next moon,
           so he has told me."

    Shere Khan was the tiger
         who lived
               near the Waingunga River,
           twenty miles away.

    "He has no right!"

    Father Wolf began angrily
          --"By the Law
               of the Jungle
             he has no right
                  to change his quarters