登陆注册
4370400000023

第23章 LETTING IN THE JUNGLE(9)

But the work was practically done. When the villagers looked in the morning they saw their crops were lost. And that meant death if they did not get away, for they lived year in and year out as near to starvation as the Jungle was near to them. When the buffaloes were sent to graze the hungry brutes found that the deer had cleared the grazing-grounds, and so wandered into the Jungle and drifted off with their wild mates; and when twilight fell the three or four ponies that belonged to the village lay in their stables with their heads beaten in. Only Bagheera could have given those strokes, and only Bagheera would have thought of insolently dragging the last carcass to the open street.

The villagers had no heart to make fires in the fields that night, so Hathi and his three sons went gleaning among what was left; and where Hathi gleans there is no need to follow. The men decided to live on their stored seed-corn until the rains had fallen, and then to take work as servants till they could catch up with the lost year; but as the grain-dealer was thinking of his well-filled crates of corn, and the prices he would levy at the sale of it, Hathi's sharp tusks were picking out the corner of his mud-house, and smashing open the big wicker chest, leeped with cow-dung, where the precious stuff lay.

When that last loss was discovered, it was the Brahmin's turn to speak. He had prayed to his own Gods without answer. It might be, he said, that, unconsciously, the village had offended some one of the Gods of the Jungle, for, beyond doubt, the Jungle was against them. So they sent for the head-man of the nearest tribe of wandering Gonds--little, wise, and very black hunters, living in the deep Jungle, whose fathers came of the oldest race in India--the aboriginal owners of the land. They made the Gond welcome with what they had, and he stood on one leg, his bow in his hand, and two or three poisoned arrows stuck through his top-knot, looking half afraid and half contemptuously at the anxious villagers and their ruined fields. They wished to know whether his Gods--the Old Gods--were angry with them and what sacrifices should be offered. The Gond said nothing, but picked up a trail of the Karela, the vine that bears the bitter wild gourd, and laced it to and fro across the temple door in the face of the staring red Hindu image. Then he pushed with his hand in the open air along the road to Khanhiwara, and went back to his Jungle, and watched the Jungle People drifting through it. He knew that when the Jungle moves only white men can hope to turn it aside.

There was no need to ask his meaning. The wild gourd would grow where they had worshipped their God, and the sooner they saved themselves the better.

But it is hard to tear a village from its moorings. They stayed on as long as any summer food was left to them, and they tried to gather nuts in the Jungle, but shadows with glaring eyes watched them, and rolled before them even at mid-day; and when they ran back afraid to their walls, on the tree-trunks they had passed not five minutes before the bark would be stripped and chiselled with the stroke of some great taloned paw. The more they kept to their village, the bolder grew the wild things that gambolled and bellowed on the grazing-grounds by the Waingunga.

They had no time to patch and plaster the rear walls of the empty byres that backed on to the Jungle; the wild pig trampled them down, and the knotty-rooted vines hurried after and threw their elbows over the new-won ground, and the coarse grass bristled behind the vines like the lances of a goblin army following a retreat. The unmarried men ran away first, and carried the news far and near that the village was doomed.

Who could fight, they said, against the Jungle, or the Gods of the Jungle, when the very village cobra had left his hole in the platform under the peepul-tree? So their little commerce with the outside world shrunk as the trodden paths across the open grew fewer and fainter. At last the nightly trumpetings of Hathi and his three sons ceased to trouble them; for they had no more to be robbed of. The crop on the ground and the seed in the ground had been taken. The outlying fields were already losing their shape, and it was time to throw themselves on the charity of the English at Khanhiwara.

Native fashion, they delayed their departure from one day to another till the first Rains caught them and the unmended roofs let in a flood, and the grazing-ground stood ankle deep, and all life came on with a rush after the heat of the summer. Then they waded out--men, women, and children--through the blinding hot rain of the morning, but turned naturally for one farewell look at their homes.

They heard, as the last burdened family filed through the gate, a crash of falling beams and thatch behind the walls. They saw a shiny, snaky black trunk lifted for an instant, scattering sodden thatch. It disappeared, and there was another crash, followed by a squeal. Hathi had been plucking off the roofs of the huts as you pluck water-lilies, and a rebounding beam had pricked him. He needed only this to unchain his full strength, for of all things in the Jungle the wild elephant enraged is the most wantonly destructive. He kicked backward at a mud wall that crumbled at the stroke, and, crumbling, melted to yellow mud under the torrent of rain. Then he wheeled and squealed, and tore through the narrow streets, leaning against the huts right and left, shivering the crazy doors, and crumpling up the caves;while his three sons raged behind as they had raged at the Sack of the Fields of Bhurtpore.

"The Jungle will swallow these shells," said a quiet voice in the wreckage. "It is the outer wall that must lie down," and Mowgli, with the rain sluicing over his bare shoulders and arms, leaped back from a wall that was settling like a tired buffalo.

"All in good time," panted Hathi. "Oh, but my tusks were red at Bhurtpore; To the outer wall, children! With the head!

Together! Now!"

The four pushed side by side; the outer wall bulged, split, and fell, and the villagers, dumb with horror, saw the savage, clay-streaked heads of the wreckers in the ragged gap. Then they fled, houseless and foodless, down the valley, as their village, shredded and tossed and trampled, melted behind them.

A month later the place was a dimpled mound, covered with soft, green young stuff; and by the end of the Rains there was the roaring jungle in full blast on the spot that had been under plough not six months before.

同类推荐
  • 戒

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 今水经

    今水经

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 淡水厅志

    淡水厅志

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 王梵志诗集

    王梵志诗集

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • THE COMPLEAT ANGLER

    THE COMPLEAT ANGLER

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
热门推荐
  • 异界大陆的救赎

    异界大陆的救赎

    剑还是魔法?金钱、荣誉或美女?幻兽、领主、争霸,神魔?当然不止这些,最重要的还是无敌!新书求支持!
  • 重生之秋起浅灵来

    重生之秋起浅灵来

    前世的她一出生便被人算计,和皇家公主调换身份,虽然享受了十二年受尽万千宠爱的生活,但最后被人揭穿身份,惨死自家地牢。这一世重生于胞妹身体,低调回归,手握神秘灵术,定要将前世害她之人打入万劫不复之地。
  • 魔鹿

    魔鹿

    黑暗破晓,而你又在何方?这是一次失败的尝试。
  • 西游后纪:战天斗地

    西游后纪:战天斗地

    天地如囚笼,众生蝼蚁活,仙佛神台座,生灵轮回苦,圣人若不死,大盗永不止;西游后五百年,一个放逐的灵魂,一具卑微的身躯,誓要颠覆六道,逆天伐圣,战天斗地。
  • 明伦汇编人事典悔悟部

    明伦汇编人事典悔悟部

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 霸汉(10)

    霸汉(10)

    西汉末年,王莽篡汉,酿就天下大乱。汉室武皇刘正七次蹄踏皇城,以无可匹敌的武力屠尽王莽的各道势力。但其仍不是宿命之帝,心灰意冷终让复国大业由天而定。无赖少年林渺出身神秘,从小混迹于市井之中,一身痞气却满腹经纶,至情至性,智深若海。偶涉武道以天纵之资无师而成绝世高手,凭借超凡的智慧和胆识自乱世之中脱颖而出。在万般劫难之后,恰逢赤眉绿林之乱,乃聚小城之兵,以奇迹般的速度在乱世中崛起。他巧造声势,妙借诸雄之力,更以无人能敌的勇猛与战无不胜的军事天赋,带领一群忠心不二的部下征战天下,慑服群雄。历经千战终独霸大汉江山,成一代无敌皇者。他就是——东汉光武帝刘秀!
  • 佛说妙吉祥菩萨陀罗尼

    佛说妙吉祥菩萨陀罗尼

    本书为公版书,为不受著作权法限制的作家、艺术家及其它人士发布的作品,供广大读者阅读交流。汇聚授权电子版权。
  • 世界最具影响性的文坛巨匠(2)

    世界最具影响性的文坛巨匠(2)

    我的课外第一本书——震撼心灵阅读之旅经典文库,《阅读文库》编委会编。通过各种形式的故事和语言,讲述我们在成长中需要的知识。
  • 吃货甜心之捞到拽少爷

    吃货甜心之捞到拽少爷

    文艺版某女在参加吃货大赛中荣获一等奖,某男得知轻笑而语:丫头,期待与你的相逢。青溪:为何重逢时我们形同陌路感天感地命运如此卖萌版某男把某女扛在肩上:苏逸辰!有种把我放下来,我们单挑!不料,某女摔了个狗啃泥。某男对视某女:丫头,这辈子你只能任我一人欺负...
  • 帮助孩子挖掘潜能的经典小故事

    帮助孩子挖掘潜能的经典小故事

    编者以孩子的求知欲与好奇心为契机紧紧抓住儿童求知欲强的心理特点,以讲述一个个经典生动小故事的形式帮助孩子挖掘自己的巨大潜能,以激励他们从小,树雄心立大志强体魄陶冶心灵等,让他们早日看到自己不可估量的潜能。