h, remembering the order that Tha
had given, let down their branches and marked him as he ran, drawing
their fingers across his back, his flank, his forehead, and his jowl.
Wherever they touched him there was a mark and a stripe upon his yellow
hide. AND THOSE STRIPES DO THIS CHILDREN WEAR TO THIS DAY! When he came
to the cave, Fear, the Hairless One, put out his hand and called him
'The Striped One that comes by night,' and the First of the Tigers was
afraid of the Hairless One, and ran back to the swamps howling."

Mowgli chuckled quietly here, his chin in the water.

"So loud did he howl that Tha heard him and said, 'What is the sorrow?'
And the First of the Tigers, lifting up his muzzle to the new-made sky,
which is now so old, said: 'Give me back my power, O Tha. I am made
ashamed before all the Jungle, and I have run away from a Hairless One,
and he has called me a shameful name.' 'And why?' said Tha. 'Because I
am smeared with the mud of the marshes,' said the First of the Tigers.
'Swim, then, and roll on the wet grass, and if it be mud it will wash
away,' said Tha; and the First of the Tigers swam, and rolled and rolled
upon the grass, till the Jungle ran round and round before his eyes, but
not one little bar upon all his hide was changed, and Tha, watching him,
laughed. Then the First of the Tigers said: 'What have I done that this
comes to me?' Tha said, 'Thou hast killed the buck, and thou hast let
Death loose in the Jungle, and with Death has come Fear, so that the
people of the Jungle are afraid one of the other, as thou art afraid of
the Hairless One.' The First of the Tigers said, 'They will never fear
me, for I knew them since the beginning.' Tha said, 'Go and see.' And
the First of the Tigers ran to and fro, calling aloud to the deer and
the pig and the sambhur and the porcupine and all the Jungle Peoples,
and they all ran away from him who had been their judge, because they
were afraid.

"Then the First of the Tigers came back, and his pride was broken in
him, and, beating his head upon the ground, he tore up the earth with
all his feet and said: 'Remember that I was once the Master of the
Jungle. Do not forget me, O Tha! Let my children remember that I was
once without shame or fear!' And Tha said: 'This much I will do, because
thou and I together saw the Jungle made. For one night in each year
it shall be as it was before the buck was killed--for thee and for thy
children. In that one night, if ye