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"Hathi and his three sons had arrived, in their usual way, without a sound. The mud of the river was still fresh on their flanks, and Hathi was thoughtfully chewing the green stem of a young plantain-tree that he had gouged up with his tusks. But every line in his vast body showed to Bagheera, who could see things when he came across them, that it was not the Master of the Jungle speaking to a Man-cub, but one who was afraid coming before one who was not. His three sons rolled side by side, behind their father.
Mowgli hardly lifted his head as Hathi gave him ‘Good hunting.’ He kept him swinging and rocking, and shifting from one foot to another, for a long time before he spoke; and when he opened his mouth it was to Bagheera, not to the elephants.
‘I will tell a tale that was told to me by the hunter ye hunted to-day,’ said Mowgli. ‘It concerns an elephant, old and wise, who fell into a trap, and the sharpened stake in the pit scarred him from a little above his heel to the crest of his shoulder, leaving a white mark.’ Mowgli threw out his hand, and as Hathi wheeled the moonlight showed a long white scar on his slaty side, as though he had been struck with a red-hot whip. ‘Men came to take him from the trap,’ Mowgli continued, ‘but he broke his ropes, for he was strong, and went away till his wound was healed. Then came he, angry, by night to the fields of those hunters. And I remember now that he had three sons. These things happened many, many Rains ago, and very far away—among the fields of Bhurtpore. What came to those fields at the next reaping, Hathi?’
‘They were reaped by me and by my three sons,’ said Hathi.
‘And to the ploughing that follows the reaping?’ said Mowgli.
‘There was no ploughing,’ said Hathi.
‘And to the men that live by the green crops on the ground?’ said Mowgli.
‘They went away.’
‘And to the huts in which the men slept?’ said Mowgli.
‘We tore the roofs to pieces, and the jungle swallowed up the walls,’ said Hathi.
‘And what more?’ said Mowgli.
‘As much good ground as I can walk over in two nights from the east to the west, and from the north to the south as much as I can walk over in three nights, the Jungle took. We let in the jungle upon five villages; and in those villages, and in their lands, the grazing-ground and the soft crop-grounds, there is not one man to-day who takes his food from the ground. That was the Sack of the Fields of Bhurtpore, which I and my three sons did; and now I ask, Man-cub, how the news of it came to thee?’ said Hathi. "
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