hey are afraid of him too, because Tabaqui, more
than any one else in the jungle, is apt to go mad, and then he
forgets that he was ever afraid of any one, and runs through the
forest biting everything in his way. Even the tiger runs and hides
when little Tabaqui goes mad, for madness is the most disgraceful
thing that can overtake a wild creature. We call it hydrophobia, but
they call it _dewanee_--the madness--and run.

'Enter, then, and look,' said Father Wolf, stiffly; 'but there is no
food here.'

'For a wolf, no,' said Tabaqui; 'but for so mean a person as myself a
dry bone is a good feast. Who are we, the Gidur-log [the jackal
people], to pick and choose?' He scuttled to the back of the cave,
where he found the bone of a buck with some meat on it, and sat
cracking the end merrily.

'All thanks for this good meal,' he said, licking his lips. 'How
beautiful are the noble children! How large are their eyes! And so
young too! Indeed, indeed, I might have remembered that the children
of kings are men from the beginning.'

Now, Tabaqui knew as well as any one else that there is nothing so
unlucky as to compliment children to their faces; and it pleased him
to see Mother and Father Wolf look uncomfortable.

Tabaqui sat still, rejoicing in the mischief that he had made, and
then he said spitefully:

'Shere Khan, the Big One, has shifted his hunting-grounds. He will
hunt among these hills for the next moon, so he has told me.'

Shere Khan was the tiger who lived near the Waingunga River, twenty
miles away.

'He has no right!' Father Wolf began angrily--'By the Law of the
Jungle he has no right to change his quarters without due warning. He
will frighten every head of game within ten miles, and I--I have to
kill for two, these days.'

'His mother did not call him Lungri [the Lame One] for nothing,' said
Mother Wolf, quietly. He has been lame in one foot from his birth.
That is why he has only killed cattle. Now the villagers of the
Waingunga are angry with him, and he has come here to make _our_
villagers angry. They will scour the jungle for him when he is far
away, and we and our children must run when the grass is set alight.
Indeed, we are very grateful to Shere Khan!'

'Shall I tell him of your gratitude?' said Tabaqui.

'Out!' snapped Father Wolf. 'Out and hunt with thy master. Thou hast
done harm enough for one night.'

'I go,' said Tabaqui, quietly. 'Ye can hear Shere Khan below in the
thickets. I