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The Jungle book

Now Rann the Kite brings home the night
That Mang the Bat sets free
The herds are shut in byre and hut
For loosed till dawn are we.
This is the hour of pride and power,
Talon and tooth and claw.
Oh, hear the call! Good hunting all
That keep the Jungle Law!

The Jackal.

It was seven o'clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day's rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big gray nose dropped across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. "Augrh!" said Father Wolf. "It is time to hunt again." He was going to spring downhill when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined: "Good luck go with you, O Chief of the Wolves. And good luck and strong white teeth go with noble children that they may never forget the hungry in this world."

It was the jackal - Tabaqui, the Dish-licker - and the wolves of India despise Tabaqui because he runs about making mischief, and telling tales, and eating rags and pieces of leather from the village rubbish-heaps. But they are afraid of him too, because Tabaqui, more than anyone else in the jungle, is apt to go mad, and then he forgets that he was ever afraid of anyone, and runs through the forest biting everything in his way. Even the tiger runs and hides when little Tabaqui goes mad, for madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtake a wild creature. We call it hydrophobia, but they call it dewanee - the madness - and run.

Vocabulary:

Byre: An old word for barn. Sometimes a byre has no roof
Talon: The fingernails of an animal
Jackal: A small animal like a dog that eats what other animals leave
Paws: An animal's hands and feet
Tumbling: Rolling and falling
Spring: Here it means jump
Bushy: Hairy and disorganised
Threshold: Just inside the door
Whine: The sound an unhappy dog makes
Rags: Bits of cloth
Apt: Likely or suitable to do something
Overtake: Here it means "happen to"
Hydrophobia: Also called rabies - a very dangerous disease

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