O mother, mother, my heart is heavy in me.” He shivered as he set down the child.

“Like enough,” said Messua, bustling among the cooking-pots. “This comes of running about the marshes by night. Beyond question, the fever had soaked thee to the marrow.” Mowgli smiled a little at the idea of anything in the Jungle hurting him. “I will make a fire, and thou shalt drink warm milk. Put away the jasmine wreath: the smell is heavy in so small a place.”

Mowgli sat down, muttering, with his face in his hands. All manner of strange feelings that he had never felt before were running over him, exactly as though he had been poisoned, and he felt dizzy and a little sick. He drank the warm milk in long gulps, Messua patting him on the shoulder from time to