Baloo and Bagheera stood still as stone, growling in their throats, their neck hair bristling, and Mowgli watched and wondered.

“Bandar-log,” said the voice of Kaa at last, “can ye stir foot or hand without my order?  Speak!”

“Without thy order we cannot stir foot or hand, O Kaa!”

“Good!  Come all one pace nearer to me.”

The lines of the monkeys swayed forward helplessly, and Baloo and Bagheera took one stiff step forward with them.

“Nearer!” hissed Kaa, and they all moved again.

Mowgli laid his hands on Baloo and Bagheera to get them away, and the two great beasts started as though they had been waked from a dream.

“Keep thy hand on my shoulder,” Bagheera whispered.  “Keep it there, or I must go back—­must go back to Kaa.  Aah!”

“It is only old Kaa making circles on the dust,” said Mowgli.  “Let us go.”  And the three slipped off through a gap in the walls to the jungle.

“Whoof!” said Baloo, when he stood under the still trees again.  “Never more will I make an ally of Kaa,” and he shook himself all over.

“He knows more than we,” said Bagheera, trembling.  “In a little time, had I stayed, I should have walked down his throat.”

“Many will walk by that road before the moon rises again,” said Baloo.  “He will have good hunting—­after his own fashion.”

“But what was the meaning of it all?” said Mowgli, who did not know anything of a python’s powers of fascination.  “I saw no more than a big snake making foolish circles till the dark came.  And his nose was all sore.  Ho!  Ho!”

“Mowgli,” said Bagheera angrily, “his nose was sore on thy account, as my ears and sides and paws, and Baloo’s neck and shoulders are bitten on thy account.  Neither Baloo nor Bagheera will be able to hunt with pleasure for many days.”

“It is nothing,” said Baloo; “we have the man-cub again.”

“True, but he has cost us heavily in time which might have been spent in good hunting, in wounds, in hair—­I am half plucked along my back—­and last of all, in honor.  For, remember, Mowgli, I, who am the Black Panther, was forced to call upon Kaa for protection, and Baloo and I were both made stupid as little birds by the Hunger Dance.  All this, man-cub, came of thy playing with the Bandar-log.”

“True, it is true,” said Mowgli sorrowfully.  “I am an evil man-cub, and my stomach is sad in me.”

“Mf!  What says the Law of the Jungle, Baloo?”

Baloo did not wish to bring Mowgli into any more trouble, but he could not tamper with the Law, so he mumbled:  “Sorrow never stays punishment.  But remember, Bagheera, he is very little.”

“I will remember.  But he has done mischief, and blows must be dealt now.  Mowgli, hast thou anything to say?”

“Nothing.  I did wrong.  Baloo and thou are wounded.  It is just.”

Bagheera gave him half a dozen love-taps from a panther’s point of view (they would hardly have waked one of his own cubs), but for a seven-year-old boy they amounted to as severe a beating as you could wish to avoid.  When it was all over Mowgli sneezed, and picked himself up without a word.