"Or for a pledge?" said Bagheera, his white teeth bared under his lip. "Well are you called the Free People!"

"No man's cub can run with the people of the jungle," howled Shere Khan. "Give him to me!"

"He is our brother in all but blood," Akela went on, "and you would kill him here! In truth, I have lived too long. Some of you are eaters of cattle, and of others I have heard that, under Shere Khan's teaching, you go by dark night and snatch children from the villager's doorstep. Therefore I know you to be cowards, and it is to cowards I speak. It is certain that I must die, and my life is of no worth, or I would offer that in the man-cub's place.

But for the sake of the Honour of the Pack - a little matter that because you are without a leader you have forgotten - I promise that if you let the man-cub go to his own place, I will not, when my time comes to die, bare one tooth against you. I will die without fighting. That will at least save the Pack three lives. More I cannot do; but if you will, I can save you the shame that comes of killing a brother against whom there is no fault - a brother spoken for and bought into the Pack according to the Law of the Jungle."

"He is a man - a man - a man!" snarled the Pack. And most of the wolves began to gather round Shere Khan, whose tail was beginning to switch.

"Now the business is in your hands," said Bagheera to Mowgli. "We can do no more except fight."