Bagheera Quotes

“I speak for the man’s cub. There is no harm in a man’s cub. I have no gift of words, but I speak the truth. Let him run with the Pack, and be entered with the others. I myself will teach him.”

“Listen to Bagheera. The cub can be bought for a price. It is the Law.”

“Knowing that I have no right to speak here, I ask your leave.”

“To kill a naked cub is shame. Besides, he may make better sport for you when he is grown. Baloo has spoken in his behalf. Now to Baloo’s word I will add one bull, and a fat one, newly killed, not half a mile from here, if ye will accept the man’s cub according to the Law. Is it difficult?”

“What matter? He will die in the winter rains. He will scorch in the sun. What harm can a naked frog do us? Let him run with the Pack. Where is the bull, Bagheera? Let him be accepted.”

“for the time will come when this naked thing will make thee roar to another tune, or I know nothing of man.”

“Come along, Little Brother.”

“Little Brother, how often have I told thee that Shere Khan is thy enemy?”

“But this is no time for sleeping. Baloo knows it; I know it; the Pack know it; and even the foolish, foolish deer know. Tabaqui has told thee too.”

“That was foolishness, for though Tabaqui is a mischief-maker, he would have told thee of something that concerned thee closely.

Shere Khan dare not kill thee in the jungle.

In a little time thou wilt be a man.”

“There is no one in the jungle that knows that I, Bagheera, carry that mark—the mark of the collar; and yet, Little Brother, I was born among men, and it was among men that my mother died—in the cages of the king’s palace at Oodeypore.”

“And even as I returned to my jungle, so thou must go back to men at last—to the men who are thy brothers—if thou art not killed in the Council.”

“Not even I can look thee between the eyes, and I was born among men, and I love thee, Little Brother. The others they hate thee because their eyes cannot meet thine; because thou art wise; because thou hast pulled out thorns from their feet—because thou art a man.”

“What is the Law of the Jungle? Strike first and then give tongue. By thy very carelessness they know that thou art a man. But be wise. It is in my heart that when Akela misses his next kill—and at each hunt it costs him more to pin the buck—the Pack will turn against him and against thee. They will hold a jungle Council at the Rock, and then—and then—I have it!”

“That is a man. That is all a man,”

“Good! Now, I have seen men thrust a dry branch into that stuff, and presently the Red Flower blossomed at the end of it. Art thou not afraid?”

“Also, I paid for him with a bull when he was accepted. The worth of a bull is little, but Bagheera’s honor is something that he will perhaps fight for,” said Bagheera in his gentlest voice.

“Save Akela from the death. He was ever thy friend.”

“Let them fall, Mowgli. They are only tears.”

“Well, look to it then that thou dost not kill the man-cub. He is no tree trunk to sharpen thy blunt claws upon. But what are those Master Words? I am more likely to give help than to ask it”—Bagheera stretched out one paw and admired the steel-blue, ripping-chorus talons at the end of it—“still I should like to know.”

“I will call Mowgli and he shall say them—if he will. Come, Little Brother!”

“What is this new folly, little dreamer of dreams?” said Bagheera. “Yes, and throw branches and dirt at old Baloo,” Mowgli went on. “They have promised me this. Ah!”

“They lie. They have always lied.”

“We of the jungle have no dealings with them. We do not drink where the monkeys drink; we do not go where the monkeys go; we do not hunt where they hunt; we do not die where they die.”

“I—I? How was I to guess he would play with such dirt. The Monkey People! Faugh!”

“He has noticed us! Bagheera has noticed us. All the Jungle-People admire us for our skill and our cunning.”

“What was the use of half slaying him with blows if thou didst not warn him?”

“At that speed! It would not tire a wounded cow.

Teacher of the Law—cub-beater—

Why did I not warn thee against the Monkey-Folk instead of breaking thy head?

“What would the jungle think if I, the Black Panther, curled myself up like Ikki the Porcupine, and howled?”

“What do I care what the jungle thinks? He may be dead by now.”

“Unless and until they drop him from the branches in sport, or kill him out of idleness, I have no fear for the man-cub. He is wise and well taught, and above all he has the eyes that make the Jungle-People afraid. But (and it is a great evil) he is in the power of the Bandar-log, and they, because they live in trees, have no fear of any of our people.”

“What will he do for us? He is not of our tribe, being footless—and with most evil eyes,”

“Bagheera, who did not know much about Kaa, was naturally suspicious.”

“Footless, yellow earth-worm,” said Bagheera under his whiskers, as though he were trying to remember something.

“Something of that kind it was that they shouted to us last moon, but we never noticed them. They will say anything—even that thou hast lost all thy teeth, and wilt not face anything bigger than a kid, because (they are indeed shameless, these Bandar-log)—because thou art afraid of the he-goat’s horns,”

“I am no more than the old and sometimes very foolish Teacher of the Law to the Seeonee wolf-cubs, and Bagheera here—”

Is Bagheera, said the Black Panther, and his jaws shut with a snap, for he did not believe in being humble.

The trouble is this, Kaa. Those nut-stealers and pickers of palm leaves have stolen away our man-cub of whom thou hast perhaps heard.

“The best and wisest and boldest of man-cubs—my own pupil, who shall make the name of Baloo famous through all the jungles; and besides, I—we—love him, Kaa.”

“I will remember thee in my next kill, and put aside the head for thee alone, O best of kites!”

“But I am proud of him, and now we must go to the Cold Lairs.”

“Stay there,” shouted the monkeys, “till we have killed thy friends, and later we will play with thee—if the Poison-People leave thee alive.”

“To the tank, Bagheera. Roll to the water tanks. Roll and plunge! Get to the water!”

“We be of one blood, ye and I”

“In a little time, had I stayed, I should have walked down his throat.”

“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.

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.

“Now,” said Bagheera, “jump on my back, Little Brother, and we will go home.”