the Pack,--a little matter that by being without a leader ye have
forgotten,--I promise that if ye let the man-cub go to his own place, I
will not, when my time comes to die, bare one tooth against ye. I will
die without fighting. That will at least save the Pack three lives.
More I cannot do; but if ye will, I can save ye 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 thy hands," said Bagheera to Mowgli. "We can do
no more except fight."

Mowgli stood upright--the fire pot in his hands. Then he stretched out
his arms, and yawned in the face of the Council; but he was furious with
rage and sorrow, for, wolflike, the wolves had never told him how they
hated him. "Listen you!" he cried. "There is no need for this dog's
jabber. Ye have told me so often tonight that I am a man (and indeed I
would have been a wolf with you to my life's end) that I feel your words
are true. So I do not call ye my brothers any more, but sag [dogs], as
a man should. What ye will do, and what ye will not do, is not yours
to say. That matter is with me; and that we may see the matter more
plainly, I, the man, have brought here a little of the Red Flower which
ye, dogs, fear."

He flung the fire pot on the ground, and some of the red coals lit
a tuft of dried moss that flared up, as all the Council drew back in
terror before the leaping flames.