Page 63 - THE JUNGLE BOOK

The Jungle Book

pull their friends’ tails or jump up and down on all fours,
coughing.
‘I wish to eat,’ said Mowgli. ‘I am a stranger in this part
of the jungle. Bring me food, or give me leave to hunt

here.’
Twenty or thirty monkeys bounded away to bring him
nuts and wild pawpaws. But they fell to fighting on the
road, and it was too much trouble to go back with what
was left of the fruit. Mowgli was sore and angry as well as
hungry, and he roamed through the empty city giving the
Strangers’ Hunting Call from time to time, but no one
answered him, and Mowgli felt that he had reached a very
bad place indeed. ‘All that Baloo has said about the
Bandar-log is true,’ he thought to himself. ‘They have no
Law, no Hunting Call, and no leaders—nothing but
foolish words and little picking thievish hands. So if I am
starved or killed here, it will be all my own fault. But I
must try to return to my own jungle. Baloo will surely
beat me, but that is better than chasing silly rose leaves
with the Bandar-log.’
No sooner had he walked to the city wall than the
monkeys pulled him back, telling him that he did not
know how happy he was, and pinching him to make him
grateful. He set his teeth and said nothing, but went with

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