And because I had learned the ways of men, I became more terrible in the jungle than Shere Khan. Is it not so?"

"Yes," said Mowgli, "all the jungle fear Bagheera - all except Mowgli."

"Oh, you are a man's cub," said the Black Panther very tenderly. "And even as I returned to my jungle, so you must go back to men at last - to the men who are thy brothers - if you are not killed in the Council."

"But why - but why should any wish to kill me?" said Mowgli.

"Look at me," said Bagheera. And Mowgli looked at him steadily between the eyes. The big panther turned his head away in half a minute. "That is why," he said, shifting his paw on the leaves. "Not even I can look thee between the eyes, and I was born among men, and I love you, Little Brother. The others hate you because their eyes cannot meet thine; because you are wise; because you have pulled out thorns from their feet - because you are a man."

"I did not know these things," said Mowgli sullenly, and he frowned with his heavy black eyebrows.