“I am sore, hungry, and not a little bruised; but, oh, they have handled ye grievously, my Brothers! Ye bleed.”

“Others also,” said Bagheera, licking his lips and looking at the monkey-dead on the terrace and round the tank.

“It is nothing, it is nothing if thou art safe, O my pride of all little frogs!” whimpered Baloo.

“Of that we shall judge later,” said Bagheera, in a dry voice that Mowgli did not at all like. “But here is Kaa, to whom we owe the battle and thou owest thy life. Thank him according to our customs, Mowgli.”

Mowgli turned and saw the great python’s head swaying a foot above his own.

“So this is the manling,” said Kaa. “Very soft is his skin, and he is not so unlike the Bandar-log. Have a care, Manling, that I do not mistake thee for a monkey some twilight when I have newly changed my coat.”