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З «Першої книги Джунглів». From ‘The Jungle Book’
Mowgli’s Brothers
Брати Мауглі
Kaa’s Hunting
Полювання Каа
‘Tiger! Tiger!’
«Тигр, тигр!»
З «Другої книги Джунглів». From ‘The Second Jungle Book’
How Fear Came
Як прийшов страх
Letting in the Jungle
Навала джунглів
The Spring Running
Весняний біг
It was seven o’clock of a very warm evening in the Seeonee hills when Father Wolf woke up from his day’s rest, scratched himself, yawned, and spread out his paws one after the other to get rid of the sleepy feeling in their tips. Mother Wolf lay with her big grey nose dropped across her four tumbling, squealing cubs, and the moon shone into the mouth of the cave where they all lived. ‘Augrh!’ said Father Wolf, ‘it is time to hunt again.’ and he was going to spring downhill when a little shadow with a bushy tail crossed the threshold and whined: ‘Good luck go with you, O Chief of the Wolves; and good luck and strong white teeth go with the noble children, that they may never forget the hungry in this world.’
It was the jackal – Tabaqui, the Dish-licker – and the wolves of India despise Tabaqui because he runs about making mischief, and telling tales, and eating rags and pieces of leather from the village rubbish-heaps. But they are afraid of him too, because Tabaqui, more than anyone else in the Jungle, is apt to go mad, and then he forgets that he was ever afraid of anyone, and runs through the forest biting everything in his way. Even the tiger runs and hides when little Tabaqui goes mad, for madness is the most disgraceful thing that can overtake a wild creature. We call it hydrophobia, but they call it dewanee — the madness – and run.
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‘What is it, Son?’ she said.
‘Some bat’s chatter of Shere Khan,’ he called back. ‘I hunt among the ploughed fields tonight,’ and he plunged downward through the bushes, to the stream at the bottom of the valley. There he checked, for he heard the yell of the Pack hunting, heard the bellow of a hunted sambhur, and the snort as the buck turned at bay. Then there were wicked, bitter howls from the young wolves: ‘Akela! Akela! Let the Lone Wolf show his strength. Room for the leader of the Pack! Spring, Akela!’
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