The Jungle Book Part 7 and we are delighted to dedicate this story to Rory in Canada whose family supports storynory on Patreon and to help you to understand the story I'll explain that ran the kite is a hunting bird who soars through the sky looking for food with his sharp eyes Mowgli has called out to him and asked him to tell Bagheera and Baloo where the monkey people are taking him and car is a snake a python who is very large and extremely powerful but not poisonous in the Disney film he is
a memorable baddie who wants to hypnotize Mowgli and Bagheera but in the original he is on their side and wants to help them rescue Mowgli from the bandalog at the end of the last episode a voice had just called down to Bagheera and Baloo blue looked up to see where the voice came from and there was ran the kite sweeping down with the sun shining on the upturned flanges of his wings it was near Rand's bedtime but he had ranged all over the jungle looking for the bear and had missed him in the t
hick foliage what is it I said below I have seen Mowgli among the bundalog he bade me tell you I watched the bandalog have taken him beyond the river to the Monkey City to the cold lairs they may stay there for a night or 10 nights or an hour I have told the bats to watch through the dark time this is my message good hunting all you below full gorge and a deep sleep to you ran cried Bagheera die will remember the in my next kill and put aside the head for thee alone oh best of kites it is nothin
g it is nothing the boy held the master word I could have done no less and ran circled up again to his roost he has not forgotten to use his tongue said blue with a chuckle of pride to think of one so young remembering the master word for the birds to while he was being pulled across trees it was most firmly driven into him said Bagheera but I am proud of him and now we must go to the cold lairs they all knew where that place was but few of the jungle people ever went there because what they cal
led the cold layers was an old deserted city lost and buried in the jungle and beasts seldom use a place that men have once used the wild boar will but the hunting tribes do not besides the monkeys lived there as much as they could be said to live anywhere and no self respecting animal would come within eyes shot of it except in times of drought when the half ruined tanks and reservoirs held a little water it is half a night's journey at full speed said Bagheera and Baloo looked very serious I w
ill go as fast as I can he said anxiously we dare not wait for the follow below we must go on the Quickfoot car and I feet or no feet I can keep a breast of all thy for said car shortly balloon made one effort to hurry but had to sit down panting and so they left him to come on later while Bagheera hurried forward at the quick Panther canter car said nothing but strivers Bagheera might the huge rock python held level with him when they came to a hill stream Bagheer regained because he bounded ac
ross while car swam his head and 2 feet of his neck clearing the water but on level ground car made up the distance by the broken lock that freed me said Bagheera when twilight had fallen thou art no slow goer I am hungry said car besides they called me Speckled Frog worm earthworm and yellow to boot all one let us go on and car seemed to pull himself along the ground finding the shortest road with his steady eyes and keeping to it in the cold layers the monkey people were not thinking of Mowgli
's friends at all they had brought the boy to the Lost City and were very much pleased with themselves for the time Mowgli had never seen an Indian city before and though this was almost a heap of ruins it seemed very wonderful and splendid some king had built it long ago on a little hill you could still trace the stone causeways that LED up to the ruined gates where the last splinters of wood hung to the worn rusted hinges trees had grown into and out of the walls the battlements were tumbled d
own and decayed and wild creepers hung out of the windows of the towers on the walls in bushy hanging clumps a great ruthless palace crowned the hill and the marble of the courtyards and the fountains was split and stained with red and green and the very cobblestones in the courtyard where the king's elephants used to live had been thrust up in aparts by grasses and young trees from the palace you could see the rows and rows of ruthless houses that made up the city looking like empty honeycombs
filled with blackness the shapeless block of stone that had been an idol in the square where four roads met the pits and dimples street corners with a public wells once stood and the shattered domes of temples with wild figs sprouting on their sides the monkeys called the place their city and pretended to despise the jungle people because they lived in the forest and yet they never knew what the buildings were made for nor how to use them they would sit in circles on the hall of the King's Counc
il chamber and scratch for fleas and pretend to be men or they would run in and out of the ruthless houses and collect pieces of plaster and old bricks in a corner and forget where they had hidden them and fight and cry and scuffling crowds and then break off to play up and down the terraces of the King's Garden where they would shake the rose trees and the oranges in sport to see the fruit and flowers fall they explored all the passages and dark tunnels in the palace and the hundreds of little
dark rooms but they never remembered what they had seen and what they had not and so drifted about in ones and twos or crowds telling each other that they were doing as men did they drank at the tanks and made the water all muddy and then they fought over it and then it would all rush together in mobs and shout there is no one in the jungle so wise and good and clever and strong and gentle as a bundelog then all would begin again till they grew tired of the city and went back to the treetops hop
ing that jungle people would notice them Mowgli who had been trained under the law of the jungle did not like or understand this kind of life the monkeys dragged him into the cold layers late in the afternoon and instead of going to sleep as Mowgli would have done after a long journey they joined hands and danced about and sang their foolish songs one of the monkeys made a speech and told his companions that Mowgli's capture marked a new thing in the history of the bandalog for Mowgli was going
to show them how to weave sticks and canes together as a Protection against rain and cold Mowgli picked up some creepers and began to work them in and out and the monkeys try to imitate but in a very few minutes they lost interest and began to pull their friends tails or jump up and down on all fours coughing I wish to eat I said Mowgly I am a stranger in this part of the jungle bring me food or give me leave to hunt here 20 or 30 monkeys bounded away to bring him nuts and wild paw paws but they
fell to fighting on the road and it was too much trouble to go back with what was left of the fruit Mowgli was sore and angry as well as hungry and he roamed through the empty city giving the strangers hunting cool from time to time but no one answered him and Mowgli felt that he had reached a very bad place indeed all that Baloo has said about the bandalog is true he thought to himself they have no law no hunting call no leaders nothing but foolish words and little picking thievish hands so if
I am starved or killed here it will be all my own fault but I must try to return to my own jungle but Lou will surely beat me but that is better than chasing silly rose leaves with the bandalog no sooner had he walked to the city wall then the monkeys pulled him back telling him that he did not know how happy he was and pinching him to make him grateful he set his teeth and said nothing but went with the shouting monkeys to a terrace above the red sandstone reservoirs that were half full of rai
nwater there was a ruined summer house of white marble in the centre of the terrace built for Queens dead 100 years ago the domed roof had half fallen in and blocked up the underground passage from the palace by which the Queens used to enter but the walls were made of screens of marble tracery beautiful milk white fretwork set with agates and cornelians and Jasper and lapis lazulai and as the moon came up behind the hill it shone through the open work casting shadows on the ground like black ve
lvet embroidery sore sleepy and hungry as he was Mowgli could not help laughing when the bandalog began 20 at a time to tell him how great and wise and strong and gentle they were and how foolish he was to wish to leave them we are great we are free we are wonderful we are the most wonderful people in the jungle we all say so and so it must be true they shouted now as you are a new listener and can carry our words back to the jungle people so that they may notice us in the future we will tell yo
u all about our most excellent selves Mowgli made no objection and the monkeys gathered by hundreds and hundreds on the terrace to listen to their own speakers singing the praises of the bandalog and whenever a speaker stopped for want of breath they would all shout together this is true we all say so Mowgli nodded and blinked and said yes when they asked him a question and his head spun with the noise to Bucky the jackal must have bitten all these people he said to himself and now they have mad
ness certainly this is Dewaney the madness do they never go to sleep now there is a cloud coming to cover the moon shit were only a big enough cloud I might try to run away in the darkness but I'm tired that same cloud was being watched by two good friends in the ruin ditch below the city wall for Bagheera and car knowing well how dangerous the monkey people were in large numbers did not wish to run any risks the monkeys never fight unless they are 100 to 1 and few in the jungle care for those o
dds I will go to the west wall car whispered and come down swiftly with the slope of the ground in my favor they will not throw themselves upon my back in their hundreds but I know it I said Bagheera would that Belu were here but we must do what we can when that cloud covers the moon I shall go to the terrace they hold some sort of council there over the boy good hunting said car grimly and glided away to the west wall that happened to be the least ruined of any and the big snake was delayed a w
hile before he could find a way up the stones the cloud hid the moon and as Mowgli wondered what would come next he heard Bagheera's light feet on the terrace the Black Panther had raced up the slope almost without a sound and was striking he knew better than to waste time in biting right and left among the monkeys who were seated round mowgly in circles 50 and 60 deep there was a howl of fright and rage and then as Bagheera tripped on the rolling kicking bodies beneath him a monkey shouted ther
e is only one here kill him kill a scuffling massive monkeys biting scratching tearing and pulling closed over Bagheera while five or six late hold of Mowgli dragged him up the wall of the summer house and pushed him through the hole of the broken dome a man trained boy would have been badly bruised for the fall was a good 15 feet but Mowgli fell as Baloo had taught him to fall and landed on his feet stay there shouted the monkeys till we have killed thy friends and later we will play with the i
f the poison people leave the alive we be one blood he and I said Mowgli quickly giving the snakes call he could hear rustling and hissing in the rubbish all around him and gave the call a second time to make sure oh down hood soul set half a dozen low voices every ruin in India become sooner or later a dwelling place of snakes and the old summer house was alive with cobras stand still little brother for thy feet to do us some Mowgli stood as quietly as he could peering through the open work and
listening to the furious dinner the fight ran the Black Panther the yells and chatterings and scufflings and Bagheera's deep horse cough as he backed and bucked and twisted and plunged under the heaps of his enemies for the first time since he was born Bagheera was fighting for his life balloon must be at hand Bagheera would not have come alone Mowgli thought and then he called aloud to the tank Bagheera roll to the water tanks roll and plunge get to the water Bagheera heard and the cry that to
ld him Mowgli was safe gave him new courage he worked his way desperately inch by inch straight for the reservoirs halting in silence then from the ruined wall nearest the jungle rose up the rumbling war shout of Balloo the old bear had done his best but he could not come before Bagheera he shouted I am here I climb I haste the stones slip under my feet wait my coming ho infamous bandalog he panted up the terrace only to disappear to the head in a wave of monkeys but he threw himself squarely on
his haunches and spreading out his four paws hugged as many as he could hold and then began to hit with a regular bat bat bat like the flipping strokes of a paddle wheel a crash and a splash told Mowgli that Bagheera had fought his way to the tank with a monkeys could not follow the panther lay gasping for breath his head just out of the water while the monkey stood three deep on the red steps dancing up and down with rage ready to spring upon him from all sides if he came out to help blue it w
as then that Bagheera lifted up his dripping chin and in despair gave the snakes call for Protection we be of one blood you and I for he believed that car had turned tail at the last minute even blue half smothered under the monkeys on the edge of the terrace could not help chuckling as he heard the black panther asking for help and that is the seventh episode of The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling
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