Rudyard Kipling

“ But now all that life-and-death fun was ended, and the Jungle People came up, starved and weary, to the shrunken river--tiger, bear, deer, buffalo, and pig, all together--drank the fouled waters, and hung above them, too exhausted to move off. ”

“ Yet for one night in the year the Hairless One fears the Tiger, as Tha promised, and never has the Tiger given him cause to be less afraid. Where he finds him, there he kills him, remembering how the First of the Tigers was made ashamed. For the rest, Fear walks up and down the Jungle by day and by night. ”

“ Aoo!” said the deer, thinking of what it all meant to them.
“And only when there is one great Fear over all, as there is now, can we of the Jungle lay aside our little fears, and meet together in one place as we do now.”
“For one night only does Man fear the Tiger?” said Mowgli.
“For one night only,” said Hathi.
“But I--but we--but all the Jungle knows that Shere Khan kills Man twice and thrice in a moon.”
“Even so. then he springs from behind and turns his head aside as he strikes, for he is full of fear. If Man looked at him he would run. ”

“ The deer, wild pig, and buffalo took up the cry hoarsely; and Chil, the Kite, flew in great circles far and wide, whistling and shrieking the warning.
By the Law of the Jungle it is death to kill at the drinking-places when once the Water Truce has been declared. The reason of this is that drinking comes before eating. Every one in the Jungle can scramble along somehow when only game is scarce; but water is water, and when there is but one source of supply, all hunting stops while the Jungle People go there for their needs. ”

“ We ran to and fro in circles, capering and crying out and shaking our heads. Then Tha gave an order to the trees that hang low, and to the trailing creepers of the Jungle, that they should mark the killer of the buck so that he should know him again, and he said, ‘Who will now be master of the Jungle People?’ Then up leaped the Grey Ape who lives in the branches, and said, ‘I will now be master of the Jungle.’
At this Tha laughed, and said, ‘So be it,’ and went away very angry. ”

“ You will remember that Mowgli spent a great part of his life in the Seeonee Wolf-Pack, learning the Law from Baloo, the Brown Bear; and it was Baloo who told him, when the boy grew impatient at the constant orders, that the Law was like the Giant Creeper, because it dropped across every one’s back and no one could escape. “When thou hast lived as long as I have, Little Brother, thou wilt see how all the Jungle obeys at least one Law. ”

“ The birds and the monkey-people went north early in the year, for they knew what was coming; and the deer and the wild pig broke far away to the perished fields of the villages, dying sometimes before the eyes of men too weak to kill them. Chil, the Kite, stayed and grew fat, for there was a great deal of carrion, and evening after evening he brought the news to the beasts, too weak to force their way to fresh hunting-grounds, that the sun was killing the Jungle for three days“ flight in every direction. ”

“ The foolish water is going all away, and I do not wish to break my head,” said Mowgii, who, in those days, was quite sure that he knew as much as any five of the Jungle People put together.
“That is thy loss. A small crack might let in some wisdom.” Ikki ducked quickly to prevent Mowgli from pulling his nose-bristles, and Mowgli told Baloo what Ikki had said. Baloo looked very grave, and mumbled half to himself: “If I were alone I would change my hunting-grounds now, before the others began to think. And yet--hunting among strangers ends in fighting; and they might hurt the Man-cub. ”

“ He shall make the ground to open under thy feet, and the creeper to twist about thy neck, and the tree-trunks to grow together about thee higher than thou canst leap, and at the last he shall take thy hide to wrap his cubs when they are cold. ”

“ Shere Khan slunk away, not daring to growl, for he knew--what every one else knows--that when the last comes to the last, Hathi is the Master of the Jungle.
“What is this right Shere Khan speaks of?” Mowgli whispered in Bagheera’s ear. “To kill Man is always, shameful. ”

“ In good seasons, when water was plentiful, those who came down to drink at the Waingunga--or anywhere else, for that matter--did so at the risk of their lives, and that risk made no small part of the fascination of the night’s doings. ”