The last words rang out like silver trumpets, and Hathi's three
sons rolled forward half a pace, though there was no need.
Shere Khan slunk away, not daring to growl, for he knew--what
every one else knows--that when the last comes to the last,
Hathi is the Master of the Jungle.

"What is this right Shere Khan speaks of?" Mowgli whispered in
Bagheera's ear. "To kill Man is always, shameful. The Law says
so. And yet Hathi says----"

"Ask him. I do not know, Little Brother. Right or no right, if
Hathi had not spoken I would have taught that lame butcher his
lesson. To come to the Peace Rock fresh from a kill of Man--and
to boast of it--is a jackal's trick. Besides, he tainted the
good water."

Mowgli waited for a minute to pick up his courage, because no
one cared to address Hathi directly, and then he cried: "What
is Shere Khan's right, O Hathi?" Both banks echoed his words,
for all the People of the Jungle are intensely curious, and
they had just seen something that none except Baloo, who looked
very thoughtful, seemed to understand.

"It is an old tale," said Hathi; "a tale older than the Jungle.
Keep silence along the banks and I will tell that tale."

There was a minute or two of pushing a shouldering among the
pigs and the buffalo, and then the leaders of the herds
grunted, one after another, "We wait," and Hathi strode
forward, till he was nearly knee-deep in the pool by the Peace