eyes till the red glare behind their green went out like the
light of a lighthouse shut off twenty miles across the sea;
till the eyes dropped, and the big head with them--dropped
lower and lower, and the red rasp of a tongue grated on
Mowgli's instep.

"Brother--Brother--Brother!" the boy whispered, stroking
steadily and lightly from the neck along the heaving back.
"Be still, be still! It is the fault of the night, and no
fault of thine."

"It was the smells of the night," said Bagheera penitently.
"This air cries aloud to me. But how dost THOU know?"

Of course the air round an Indian village is full of all kinds
of smells, and to any creature who does nearly all his thinking
through his nose, smells are as maddening as music and drugs are
to human beings. Mowgli gentled the panther for a few minutes
longer, and he lay down like a cat before a fire, his paws
tucked under his breast, and his eyes half shut.

"Thou art of the Jungle and NOT of the Jungle," he said at
last. "And I am only a black panther. But I love thee,
Little Brother."

"They are very long at their talk under the tree," Mowgli said,
without noticing the last sentence. "Buldeo must have told many
tales. They should come soon to drag the woman and her man out
of the trap and put them into the Red Flower. They will find
that trap sprung. Ho! ho!"