The Pack instinctively rushed after it . `` And follow now -- to the death . '' He had slipped down the tree-trunk , and headed like the wind in bare feet for the Bee Rocks , before the dholes saw what he would do . They gave one deep howl , and settled down to the long , lobbing canter that can at the last run down anything that runs . Mowgli knew their pack-pace to be much slower than that of the wolves , or he would never have risked a two-mile run in full sight . They were sure that the boy was theirs at last , and he was sure that he held them to play with as he pleased . All his trouble was to keep them sufficiently hot behind him to prevent their turning off too soon . He ran cleanly , evenly , and springily ; the tailless leader not five yards behind him ; and the Pack tailing out over perhaps a quarter of a mile of ground , crazy and blind with the rage of slaughter . So he kept his distance by ear , reserving his last effort for the rush across the Bee Rocks . The Little People had gone to sleep in the early twilight , for it was not the season of late blossoming flowers ; but as Mowgli 's first foot-falls rang hollow on the hollow ground he heard a sound as though all the earth were humming . Then he ran as he had never run in his life before , spurned aside one -- two -- three of the piles of stones into the dark , sweet-smelling gullies ; heard a roar like the roar of the sea in a cave ; saw with the tail of his eye the air grow dark behind him ; saw the current of the Waingunga far below , and a flat , diamond-shaped head in the water ; leaped outward with all his strength , the tailless dhole snapping at his shoulder in mid-air , and dropped feet first to the safety of the river , breathless and triumphant . There was not a sting upon him , for the smell of the garlic had checked the Little People for just the few seconds that he was among them . When he rose Kaa 's coils were steadying him and things were bounding over the edge of the cliff -- great lumps , it seemed , of clustered bees falling like plummets ; but before any lump touched water the bees flew upward and the body of a dhole whirled down-stream . Overhead they could hear furious short yells that were drowned in a roar like breakers -- the roar of the wings of the Little People of the Rocks . Some of the dholes , too , had fallen into the gullies that communicated with the underground caves , and there choked and fought and snapped among the tumbled honeycombs , and at last , borne up , even when they were dead , on the heaving waves of bees beneath them , shot out of some hole in the river-face , to roll over on the black rubbish-heaps . There were dholes who had leaped short into the trees on the cliffs , and the bees blotted out their shapes ; but the greater number of them , maddened by the stings , had flung themselves into the river ; and , as Kaa said , the Waingunga was hungry water . Kaa held Mowgli fast till the boy had recovered his breath . `` We may not stay here , '' he said . `` The Little People are roused indeed . Come ! ''
Swimming low and diving as often as he could , XXXXX went down the river , knife in hand .
Kaa Mowgli Waingunga choked dhole first honeycombs quarter rubbish-heaps twilight