The Water Truce
The Water Truce is from How Fear Came to the Jungle by Rudyard Kipling in The Second Jungle Book. It tells about a drought which brings all the animals to gather at the last remaining pool in the Wainganga River under a "Water Truce" where the Law of the Jungle forbids anyone from hunting at the river banks.
The Law of the Jungle is by far the oldest law in the world. You will remember that Mowgli spent a great part of his life in the Seeonee Wolf–Pack, learning the Law from Baloo, the Brown Bear; and it was Baloo who told him, when the boy grew impatient at the constant orders, that the Law was like the Giant Creeper, because it dropped across every one's back and no one could escape.
"When you have lived as long as I have, Little Brother, you will see how all the Jungle obeys at least one Law," said Baloo.
This talk went in at one ear and out at the other, for a boy who spends his life eating and sleeping does not worry about anything till it actually stares him in the face. But, one year, Baloo's words came true, and Mowgli saw all the Jungle working under the Law.
It began when the winter Rains failed almost entirely, and Ikki, the Porcupine, told Mowgli that the wild yams were drying up. Now everybody knows that Ikki is ridiculously fussy in his choice of food, and will eat nothing but the very best and ripest. So Mowgli laughed and said, "What is that to me?"
"Not much NOW," said Ikki, rattling his quills, "but later we shall see. Is there any more diving into the deep rock-pool, Little Brother?"
"No. The foolish water is going all away, and I do not wish to break my head," said Mowgli, who, in those days, was quite sure that he knew as much as any five of the Jungle People put together.
"That is your loss. A small crack in your head might let in some wisdom," said Ikki.
Inch by inch, the heat crept into the heart of the Jungle, turning it yellow, brown, and at last black. The hidden pools sank down; the juicy-stemmed creepers fell away from the trees they clung to and died at their feet; the bamboos withered, and the moss peeled off the rocks deep in the Jungle, till they were as bare and as hot as the quivering blue boulders in the bed of the stream.
Chil, the Kite, grew fat, for as the other animals died in the heat, there was a great deal of carrion for him to feed on.
Mowgli, who had never known what real hunger meant, had to eat stale honey, three years old, scraped out of deserted rock-hives. He hunted, too, for grubs under the bark of the trees. All the animals in the jungle were no more than skin and bone, and Bagheera could kill three times in a night, and hardly get a full meal. But the want of water was the worst, for though the Jungle People drink seldom they must drink deep.
And the heat went on and on, till at last the main channel of the Waingunga river was the only stream that carried a trickle of water between its dead banks; and when Hathi, the wild elephant, saw a long, ridge of rock show in the very centre of the stream, he knew that he was looking at the Peace Rock, and he lifted up his trunk and proclaimed the Water Truce. The deer, wild pig, and buffalo heard him, and Chil, the Kite, flew in great circles far and wide, whistling and shrieking the warning. By the Law of the Jungle it is death to kill at the drinking-places once the Water Truce has been declared. The reason of this is that drinking comes before eating. Every one in the Jungle can survive somehow when only food is scarce; but water is water, and when there is only one source of water, all hunting stops while the Jungle People go there. So the Jungle People came up, starved and weary, to the shrunken river — tiger, bear, deer, buffalo, and pig, all together — drank the fouled waters, and hung above them, too exhausted to move off.
The deer and the pig had tramped all day in search of something better than dried bark and withered leaves. The buffaloes had found no wallows to be cool in, and no green crops to steal. The snakes had left the Jungle and come down to the river in the hope of finding a stray frog. They curled round wet stones, and didn't even try to strike when the pigs disturbed them. The river-turtles had long ago been killed by Bagheera, cleverest of hunters, and the fish had buried themselves deep in the dry mud. Only the Peace Rock lay across the shallows.
It was here that Mowgli came nightly for the cool and the companionship. The most hungry of his enemies would hardly have cared for the boy then, His ribs stood out like the ribs of a basket. But his eye was cool and quiet, for Bagheera had told him to go quietly, hunt slowly, and never, on any account, to lose his temper.
"It is an evil time," said the Black Panther, one furnace-hot evening, "but it will go if we can live till the end. Is your stomach full, Man-cub?"
"There is stuff in my stomach, but I get no good of it. Bagheera, have the Rains forgotten us and will never come again?"
"Not I! We shall see the mohwa tree in blossom again, and the little fawns all fat with new grass. Come down to the Peace Rock and hear the news."
Up-stream, at the bend of the pool round the Peace Rock, stood Hathi, the wild elephant, with his sons. Below him a little were the deer; below these, again, the pig and the wild buffalo; and on the opposite bank, where the tall trees came down to the water's edge, was the place set apart for the Eaters of Flesh — the tiger, the wolves, the panther, the bear, and the others.
"We are under one Law, indeed," said Bagheera, wading into the water and looking across at the lines of clicking horns and starting eyes where the deer and the pig pushed each other to and fro. "Good hunting, all you," he added, and then, between his teeth, "But apart from the Law it would be VERY good hunting."
The ears of the deer caught the last sentence, and a frightened whisper ran along the ranks. "The Truce! Remember the Truce!"
"Peace there, peace!" gurgled Hathi, the wild elephant. "The Truce holds, Bagheera. This is no time to talk of hunting."
"The river has fallen since last night," said Baloo. "O Hathi, have you ever seen the like of this drought?"
"It will pass, it will pass," said Hathi, squirting water along his back and sides.
"We have one here that cannot survive long," said Baloo; and he looked toward Mowgli.
"I?" said Mowgli indignantly, sitting up in the water. "I have no long fur to cover my bones, but — but if YOUR hide were taken off, Baloo ——"
Hathi shook all over at the idea, and Baloo said severely: "Man-cub, that is not polite to tell a Teacher of the Law. I have never been seen without my hide."
"I meant no harm, Baloo; but you are like a cocoanut in the husk, and I am the same cocoanut all naked. Now that brown husk of thine ——" Mowgli was sitting cross-legged, and explaining things with his forefinger in his usual way, when Bagheera put out a paw and pulled him over backward into the water.
"Worse and worse," said the Black Panther, as the boy rose spluttering. "First Baloo is to be skinned, and now he is a cocoanut. Be careful that he does not do what the ripe cocoanuts do."
"And what is that?" said Mowgli.
"Break your head," said Bagheera quietly, pulling him under again.
"It is not good to make fun of your teacher," said the bear, when Mowgli had been ducked for the third time.