"Children's Books - Kipling, Rudyard - Jungle Book, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Children's Books)

"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 honor 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. More I
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."

Mowgli stood upright--the fire pot in his hands. Then he
stretched out his arms, and yawned in the face of the Council; but
he was furious with rage and sorrow, for, wolflike, the wolves had
never told him how they hated him. "Listen you!" he cried.