There is no mark on any."

A Jungle-dweller gets to learn by experience as much as many doctors
know of poisonous plants and berries. Mowgli sniffed the smoke that came
up from the fire, broke off a morsel of the blackened bread, tasted it,
and spat it out again.

"Apple of Death," he coughed. "The first must have made it ready in the
food for THESE, who killed him, having first killed the Gond."

"Good hunting, indeed! The kills follow close," said Bagheera.

"Apple of Death" is what the Jungle call thorn-apple or dhatura, the
readiest poison in all India.

"What now?" said the panther. "Must thou and I kill each other for
yonder red-eyed slayer?"

"Can it speak?" said Mowgli in a whisper. "Did I do it a wrong when I
threw it away? Between us two it can do no wrong, for we do not desire
what men desire. If it be left here, it will assuredly continue to kill
men one after another as fast as nuts fall in a high wind. I have no
love to men, but even I would not have them die six in a night."

"What matter? They are only men. They killed one another, and were well
pleased," said Bagheera. "That first little woodman hunted well."

"They are cubs none the less; and a cub will drown himself to bite the
moon's light on the water. The fault was mine," said Mowgli, who spoke
as though he knew all about everything. "I will never again bring into
the Jungle strange things--not though they be as beautiful as flowers.
This"--he handled the ankus gingerly--"goes back to the Father of
Cobras. But first we must sleep, and we cannot sleep near these
sleepers. Also we must bury HIM, lest he run away and kill another six.
Dig me a hole under that tree."

"But, Little Brother," said Bagheera, moving off to the spot, "I tell
thee it is no fault of the blood-drinker. The trouble is with the men."

"All one," said Mowgli. "Dig the hole deep. When we wake I will take him
up and carry him back."

*****

Two nights later, as the White Cobra sat mourning in the darkness of
the vault, ashamed, and robbed, and alone, the turquoise ankus whirled
through the hole in the wall, and clashed on the floor of golden coins.

"Father of Cobras," said Mowgli (he was careful to keep the other side
of the wall), "get thee a young and ripe one of thine own people to help
thee guard the King's Treasure, so that no man may come away alive any
more."

"Ah-ha! It returns, then. I said the thing was Death. How comes it that
thou art still alive?" the