‘Who are you?’ called Chil.
‘Mowgli, the man-cub!’ came the reply. ‘Watch where they take me, and tell Baloo and Bagheera.’
Monkeys can travel fast when they want to, and by now Baloo and Bagheera were a long way behind.
‘We cannot follow the Bandar –log through the trees,’ said Baloo, ‘and we will never catch them. But they are afraid of kaa, the big python. He can climb as easily as the monkeys, and he eats them. Perhaps he will help us.’ And so Baloo and Bagheera went to look for kaa the python.
They found him, lying in the sun-ten of brown-and –yellow snake, beautiful and dangerous.
‘What news?’ called kaa when he saw them.
‘We are looking for food,’ said Baloo. He knew that you must not hurry kaa. He is too big.
‘Let me come with you,’ said Kaa hungrily. ‘I have not eaten for day.’
‘We are following the Bandar-log,’ said Baloo. ‘Those noisy, dirty thieves have stolen our man-cub. And we love our man-cub very much, Kaa!’
‘The Bandar-log,’ said Bagheear cle verly, ‘are very much afraid of you, Kaa. But they say bad things about you, and call you “old yellow fist”, I hear.’
‘Tss! Tss! Said Kaa. ‘I will teach them not to call me bad names. Where did they take your man-cub? They will be tired of him quickly, and that is bad for him.’
‘Up! Up! Lookup Baloo!’
Baloo looked up and saw Chil the kite, high in the sky.
‘What is it?’ called Baloo.
‘I have seen Mowgli the man-cub with the Bandar-log. He knew the Master-Word. The have taken him to the monkey-city, the Lost City.’
Baloo and Bagheera knew of the monkey- city. Men lived there once, but they left hundred of years ago. Nobody went there now, only the Bandar-log.
‘We must leave at once,’ said Bagheera. ‘It is a long way.’
‘I will come as fast as I can,’ said Baloo, ‘but you and kaa can go faster. I will follow you.’
The Lost City was very old. There were many beautiful buildings, but the walls were broken and full of holes, and there were tall tree in houses that were now open to the sky. The Monkey-People called the place their city, and run around everywhere, in and of the empty houses, up and down the fruit trees in the old gardens.
Now Mowgli was in their city, and the Monkey-people were very pleased with themselves. ‘This boy can help us,’ they said . ‘He can teach us how to make things, because men are clever with their hands.’ But monkeys make many plans, and always forget them five minutes later.
When Mowgli arrived in the city, he was tired and hungry. ‘Bring me food,’ he said, and twenty or thirty monkeys run to bring him fruit. But they started fighting and forgot to take any fruit back to Mowgli.
Mowgli knew that he was in a bad place. ‘Baloo was right,’ he thought. ‘The Bandar-log have no Law and their ways are not our ways. I must try to get away. Baloo will surely be angry with me, but that is better than life with the Bandar-log.’
But when Mowgli went to the walls of the city, the monkeys pulled him back. ‘You are very happy here with us. We are great. We are wonderful.We all say so, and so it is true,’ they shouted.
‘Don’t they ever sleep? Thought Mowgli. He looked up at the sky. ‘There’s a cloud coming over the moon. Perhaps I can run away when it’s dark.But Iam tired.’