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

Shere Khan's hide on my head. For the rest, Akela goes free to
live as he pleases. Ye will not kill him, because that is not my
will. Nor do I think that ye will sit here any longer, lolling
out your tongues as though ye were somebodies, instead of dogs
whom I drive out--thus! Go!" The fire was burning furiously at
the end of the branch, and Mowgli struck right and left round the
circle, and the wolves ran howling with the sparks burning their
fur. At last there were only Akela, Bagheera, and perhaps ten
wolves that had taken Mowgli's part. Then something began to hurt
Mowgli inside him, as he had never been hurt in his life before,
and he caught his breath and sobbed, and the tears ran down his
face.

"What is it? What is it?" he said. "I do not wish to leave
the jungle, and I do not know what this is. Am I dying,
Bagheera?"

"No, Little Brother. That is only tears such as men use,"
said Bagheera. "Now I know thou art a man, and a man's cub no
longer. The jungle is shut indeed to thee henceforward. Let them
fall, Mowgli. They are only tears." So Mowgli sat and cried as
though his heart would break; and he had never cried in all his
life before.

"Now," he said, "I will go to men. But first I must say
farewell to my mother." And he went to the cave where she lived
with Father Wolf, and he cried on her coat, while the four cubs
howled miserably.

"Ye will not forget me?" said Mowgli.

"Never while we can follow a trail," said the cubs. "Come to
the foot of the hill when thou art a man, and we will talk to
thee; and we will come into the croplands to play with thee by
night."

"Come soon!" said Father Wolf. "Oh, wise little frog, come
again soon; for we be old, thy mother and I."

"Come soon," said Mother Wolf, "little naked son of mine.
For, listen, child of man, I loved thee more than ever I loved my
cubs."

"I will surely come," said Mowgli. "And when I come it will
be to lay out Shere Khan's hide upon the Council Rock. Do not
forget me! Tell them in the jungle never to forget me!"

The dawn was beginning to break when Mowgli went down the
hillside alone, to meet those mysterious things that are called
men.