All that day Mowgli sat in the cave tending his fire pot and dipping dry branches into it to see how they looked. He found a branch that satisfied him, and in the evening when Tabaqui came to the cave and told him rudely enough that he was wanted at the Council Rock, he laughed till Tabaqui ran away. Then Mowgli went to the Council, still laughing.
Akela the Lone Wolf lay by the side of his rock as a sign that the leadership of the Pack was open, and Shere Khan with his following of scrap-fed wolves walked to and fro openly being flattered. Bagheera lay close to Mowgli, and the fire pot was between Mowgli's knees. When they were all gathered together, Shere Khan began to speak-a thing he would never have dared to do when Akela was in his prime.
"He has no right," whispered Bagheera. "Say so. He is a dog's son. He will be frightened."
Mowgli sprang to his feet. "Free People," he cried, "does Shere Khan lead the Pack? What has a tiger to do with our leadership?"
"Seeing that the leadership is yet open, and being asked to speak-" Shere Khan began.
"By whom?" said Mowgli. "Are we all jackals, to fawn on this cattle butcher? The leadership of the Pack is with the Pack alone."
There were yells of "Silence, thou man's cub!" "Let him speak. He has kept our Law"; and at last the seniors of the Pack thundered: "Let the Dead Wolf speak." When a leader of the Pack has missed his kill, he is called the Dead Wolf as long as he lives, which is not long.
Akela raised his old head wearily:-
"Free People, and ye too, jackals of Shere Khan, for twelve seasons I have led ye to and from the kill, and in all that time not one has been trapped or maimed. Now I have missed my kill.
Ye know how that plot was made. Ye know how ye brought me up to an untried buck to make my weakness known. It was cleverly done.
Your right is to kill me here on the Council Rock, now.
Therefore, I ask, who comes to make an end of the Lone Wolf? For it is my right, by the Law of the Jungle, that ye come one by one."
There was a long hush, for no single wolf cared to fight Akela to the death. Then Shere Khan roared: "Bah! What have we to do with this toothless fool? He is doomed to die! It is the man-cub who has lived too long. Free People, he was my meat from the first. Give him to me! I am weary of this man-wolf folly. He has troubled the jungle for ten seasons. Give me the man-cub, or I will hunt here always, and not give you one bone! He is a man, a man's child, and from the marrow of my bones I hate him!"
Then more than half the Pack yelled: "A man! A man! What has a man to do with us? Let him go to his own place."
"And turn all the people of the villages against us?" clamored Shere Khan. "No, give him to me. He is a man, and none of us can look him between the eyes."
Akela lifted his head again and said, "He has eaten our food.
He has slept with us. He has driven game for us. He has broken no word of the Law of the Jungle."
"Also, I paid for him with a bull when he was accepted. The worth of a bull is little, but Bagheera's honour is something that he will perhaps fight for," said Bagheera in his gentlest voice.
"A bull paid ten years ago!" the Pack snarled. "What do we care for bones ten years old?"
"Or for a pledge?" said Bagheera, his white teeth bared under his lip. "Well are ye called the Free People!"
"No man's cub can run with the people of the jungle," howled Shere Khan. "Give him to me!"
"He is our brother in all but blood," Akela went on, "and ye would kill him here! In truth, I have lived too long. Some of ye are eaters of cattle, and of others I have heard that, under Shere Khan's teaching, ye go by dark night and snatch children from the villager's doorstep. Therefore I know ye to be cowards, and it is to cowards I speak.
"It is certain that I must die, and my life is of no worth, or I would offer that in the man-cub's place. But for the sake of the Honor of the Pack,-a little matter that by being without a leader ye have forgotten,-I promise that if ye let the man-cub go to his own place, I will not, when my time comes to die, bare one tooth against ye. I will die without fighting. That will at least save the Pack three lives. MoreI cannot do; but if ye will, I can save ye the shame that comes of killing a brother against whom there is no fault-a brother spoken for and bought into the Pack according to the Law of the Jungle."
"He is a man!-a man!-a man!" snarled the Pack. And most of the wolves began to gather round Shere Khan, whose tail was beginning to switch.
"Now the business is in thy hands," said Bagheera to Mowgli.
"We can do no more except fight."
