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"We be of one blood, ye and I," said Mowgli, quickly giving the Snake's Call. He could hear rustling and hissing in the rubbish all round him and gave the Call a second time, to make sure.

"Even ssso! Down hoods all!" said half a dozen low voices (every ruin in India becomes sooner or later a dwelling place of snakes, and the old summerhouse was alive with cobras). "Stand still, Little Brother, for thy feet may do us harm."

Mowgli stood as quietly as he could, peering through the open work and listening to the furious din of the fight round the Black Panther-the yells and chatterings and scufflings, and Bagheera's deep, hoarse 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.

"Baloo 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 told 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 Baloo.

The old Bear had done his best, but he could not come before.

"Bagheera," he shouted, "I am here.

I climb! I haste! Ahuwora! The stones slip under my feet!

Wait my coming, O most infamous Bandar-log!" 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 forepaws, 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 where the monkeys could not follow.

The Panther lay gasping for breath, his head just out of the water, while the monkeys 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 Baloo.

It was then that Bagheera lifted up his dripping chin, and in despair gave the Snake's Call for protection-"We be of one blood, ye and I"- for he believed that Kaa had turned tail at the last minute.

Even Baloo, half smothered under the monkeys on the edge of the terrace, could not help chuckling as he heard the Black Panther asking for help.

Kaa had only just worked his way over the west wall, landing with a wrench that dislodged a coping stone into the ditch.

He had no intention of losing any advantage of the ground, and coiled and uncoiled himself once or twice, to be sure that every foot of his long body was in working order.

All that while the fight with Baloo went on, and the monkeys yelled in the tank round Bagheera, and Mang the Bat, flying to and fro, carried the news of the great battle over the jungle, till even Hathi the Wild Elephant trumpeted, and, far away, scattered bands of the Monkey-Folk woke and came leaping along the tree-roads to help their comrades in the Cold Lairs, and the noise of the fight roused all the day birds for miles round.

Then Kaa came straight, quickly, and anxious to kill.

The fighting strength of a python is in the driving blow of his head backed by all the strength and weight of his body.

If you can imagine a lance, or a battering ram, or a hammer weighing nearly half a ton driven by a cool, quiet mind living in the handle of it, you can roughly imagine what Kaa was like when he fought.

A python four or five feet long can knock a man down if he hits him fairly in the chest, and Kaa was thirty feet long, as you know.

His first stroke was delivered into the heart of the crowd round Baloo.

It was sent home with shut mouth in silence, and there was no need of a second.

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