Complete Works of Rudyard Kipling (Illustrated), page 1
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF
RUDYARD KIPLING
(1865-1936)
Contents
The Jungle Book Stories
The Stalky Stories
The Novels
THE LIGHT THAT FAILED
THE NAULAHKA, A STORY OF WEST AND EAST
CAPTAINS COURAGEOUS
KIM
The Shorter Fiction
THE CITY OF DREADFUL NIGHT
QUARTETTE
PLAIN TALES FROM THE HILLS
SOLDIERS THREE AND OTHER STORIES
UNDER THE DEODARS
THE PHANTOM RICKSHAW AND OTHER EERIE TALES
WEE WILLIE WINKIE AND OTHER CHILD STORIES
LIFE’S HANDICAP
MANY INVENTIONS
THE JUNGLE BOOK
THE SECOND JUNGLE BOOK
THE DAY’S WORK
STALKY & CO.
JUST SO STORIES FOR LITTLE CHILDREN
TRAFFICS AND DISCOVERIES
PUCK OF POOK’S HILL
ACTIONS AND REACTIONS
ABAFT THE FUNNEL
REWARDS AND FAIRIES
A DIVERSITY OF CREATURES
LAND AND SEA TALES FOR SCOUTS AND GUIDES
DEBITS AND CREDITS
THY SERVANT A DOG
LIMITS AND RENEWALS
TALES OF INDIA: THE WINDERMERE SERIES
THE COMPLETE STALKY & CO
The Short Stories
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF SHORT STORIES
ALPHABETICAL LIST OF SHORT STORIES
The Travel Writing
FROM SEA TO SEA – LETTERS OF TRAVEL: 1887-1889
AMERICAN NOTES
LETTERS OF TRAVEL: 1892-1913
SOUVENIRS OF FRANCE
BRAZILIAN SKETCHES
The Poetry
LIST OF THE COMPLETE POETRY
The Non-Fiction
A FLEET IN BEING
A HISTORY OF ENGLAND
THE NEW ARMY IN TRAINING
FRANCE AT WAR
THE FRINGES OF THE FLEET
SEA WARFARE
THE WAR IN THE MOUNTAINS
THE GRAVES OF THE FALLEN
THE IRISH GUARDS IN THE GREAT WAR
THE EYES OF ASIA
HOW SHAKSPERE CAME TO WRITE THE ‘TEMPEST’
The Speeches
THE BOOK OF WORDS
The Criticism
LIVING MASTERS — RUDYARD KIPLING by David Christie Murray
RUDYARD KIPLING - A CRITICISM by Richard Le Gallienne
RUDYARD KIPLING by John Palmer
ON MR. RUDYARD KIPLING AND MAKING THE WORLD SMALL by G.K. Chesterton
RUDYARD KIPLING by George Orwell
MR. KIPLING’S STORIES by Andrew Lang
THE LESS FAMILIAR KIPLING AND KIPLINGANA by G. F. Monkshood
The Biography
SOMETHING OF MYSELF
© Delphi Classics 2012
Version 3
THE COMPLETE WORKS OF
RUDYARD KIPLING
The Jungle Book Stories
The Jungle Book
MOWGLI’S BROTHERS
HUNTING-SONG OF THE SEEONEE PACK
KAA’S HUNTING
ROAD-SONG OF THE BANDAR-LOG
“TIGER! TIGER!”
MOWGLI’S SONG
THE WHITE SEAL
LUKANNON
“RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI”
DARZEE’S CHANT
TOOMAI OF THE ELEPHANTS
SHIV AND THE GRASSHOPPER
HER MAJESTY’S SERVANTS
PARADE-SONG OF THE CAMP ANIMALS
The Second Jungle Book
HOW FEAR CAME
THE LAW OF THE JUNGLE
THE MIRACLE OF PURUN BHAGAT
A SONG OF KABIR
LETTING IN THE JUNGLE
MOWGLI’S SONG AGAINST PEOPLE
THE UNDERTAKERS
A RIPPLE SONG
THE KING’S ANKUS
THE SONG OF THE LITTLE HUNTER
QUIQUERN
‘ANGUTIVAUN TAINA’
RED DOG
CHIL’S SONG
THE SPRING RUNNING
THE OUTSONG
In the Rukh
Please note:In the Rukh was in fact the first Mowgli story that Kipling wrote, published a year before The Jungle Book in the short story collection Many Inventions. However, the action of the story is set later than the other Mowgli stories.
The Stalky Stories
“STALKY”
THE HOUR OF THE ANGEL
“IN AMBUSH.”
SLAVES OF THE LAMP: PART I.
AN UNSAVORY INTERLUDE.
THE IMPRESSIONISTS.
THE MORAL REFORMERS.
TO THE COMPANIONS
THE UNITED IDOLATERS
THE CENTAURS
REGULUS
A TRANSLATION
A LITTLE PREP.
THE FLAG OF THEIR COUNTRY.
THE BIRTHRIGHT
THE PROPAGATION OF KNOWLEDGE
THE SATISFACTION OF A GENTLEMAN
THE LAST TERM.
SLAVES OF THE LAMP: PART II.
Please note: the stories are placed in the chronological order of action.
The Novels
Kipling’s birthplace - Malabar Point, Bombay, 1865
THE LIGHT THAT FAILED
Kipling’s first novel was published in 1890 in Lippincott’s Monthly Magazine. Most of the novel is set in London, but many important events throughout the story occur in Sudan or India. The novel follows the adventures of Dick Heldar, a painter who goes blind.
The first publication
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
CHAPTER II
CHAPTER III
CHAPTER IV
CHAPTER V
CHAPTER VI
CHAPTER VII
CHAPTER VIII
CHAPTER IX
CHAPTER X
CHAPTER XI
CHAPTER XII
CHAPTER XIII
CHAPTER XIV
CHAPTER XV
CHAPTER I
So we settled it all when the storm was done
As comf’y as comf’y could be;
And I was to wait in the barn, my dears,
Because I was only three;
And Teddy would run to the rainbow’s foot,
Because he was five and a man;
And that’s how it all began, my dears,
And that’s how it all began.
— Big Barn Stories.
‘WHAT do you think she’d do if she caught us? We oughtn’t to have it, you know,’ said Maisie.
‘Beat me, and lock you up in your bedroom,’ Dick answered, without hesitation. ‘Have you got the cartridges?’
‘Yes; they’re in my pocket, but they are joggling horribly. Do pin-fire cartridges go off of their own accord?’
‘Don’t know. Take the revolver, if you are afraid, and let me carry them.’
‘I’m not afraid.’ Maisie strode forward swiftly, a hand in her pocket and her chin in the air. Dick followed with a small pin-fire revolver.
The children had discovered that their lives would be unendurable without pistol-practice. After much forethought and self-denial, Dick had saved seven shillings and sixpence, the price of a badly constructed Belgian revolver. Maisie could only contribute half a crown to the syndicate for the purchase of a hundred cartridges. ‘You can save better than I can, Dick,’ she explained; ‘I like nice things to eat, and it doesn’t matter to you. Besides, boys ought to do these things.’
Dick grumbled a little at the arrangement, but went out and made the purchase, which the children were then on their way to test. Revolvers did not lie in the scheme of their daily life as decreed for them by the guardian who was incorrectly supposed to stand in the place of a mother to these two orphans. Dick had been under her care for six years, during which time she had made her profit of the allowances supposed to be expended on his clothes, and, partly through thoughtlessness, partly through a natural desire to pain, — she was a widow of some years anxious to marry again, — had made his days burdensome on his young shoulders.
Where he had looked for love, she gave him first aversion and then hate.
Where he growing older had sought a little sympathy, she gave him ridicule. The many hours that she could spare from the ordering of her small house she devoted to what she called the home-training of Dick Heldar. Her religion, manufactured in the main by her own intelligence and a keen study of the Scriptures, was an aid to her in this matter. At such times as she herself was not personally displeased with Dick, she left him to understand that he had a heavy account to settle with his Creator; wherefore Dick learned to loathe his God as intensely as he loathed Mrs. Jennett; and this is not a wholesome frame of mind for the young. Since she chose to regard him as a hopeless liar, but an economical and self-contained one, never throwing away the least unnecessary fib, and never hesitating at the blackest, were it only plausible, that might make his life a little easier. The treatment taught him at least the power of living alone, — a power that was of service to him when he went to a public school and the boys laughed at his clothes, which were poor in quality and much mended. In the holidays he returned to the teachings of Mrs. Jennett, and, that the chain of discipline might not be weakened by association with the world, was generally beaten, on one account or another, before he had been twelve hours under her roof.
The autumn of
Dick learned to know her as Maisie, and at first mistrusted her profoundly, for he feared that she might interfere with the small liberty of action left to him. She did not, however; and she volunteered no friendliness until Dick had taken the first steps. Long before the holidays were over, the stress of punishment shared in common drove the children together, if it were only to play into each other’s hands as they prepared lies for Mrs. Jennett’s use. When Dick returned to school, Maisie whispered, ‘Now I shall be all alone to take care of myself; but,’ and she nodded her head bravely, ‘I can do it. You promised to send Amomma a grass collar. Send it soon.’ A week later she asked for that collar by return of post, and was not pleased when she learned that it took time to make. When at last Dick forwarded the gift, she forgot to thank him for it.
Many holidays had come and gone since that day, and Dick had grown into a lanky hobbledehoy more than ever conscious of his bad clothes. Not for a moment had Mrs. Jennett relaxed her tender care of him, but the average canings of a public school — Dick fell under punishment about three times a month — filled him with contempt for her powers. ‘She doesn’t hurt,’ he explained to Maisie, who urged him to rebellion, ‘and she is kinder to you after she has whacked me.’ Dick shambled through the days unkempt in body and savage in soul, as the smaller boys of the school learned to know, for when the spirit moved him he would hit them, cunningly and with science. The same spirit made him more than once try to tease Maisie, but the girl refused to be made unhappy. ‘We are both miserable as it is,’ said she. ‘What is the use of trying to make things worse? Let’s find things to do, and forget things.’
The pistol was the outcome of that search. It could only be used on the muddiest foreshore of the beach, far away from the bathing-machines and pierheads, below the grassy slopes of FortKeeling. The tide ran out nearly two miles on that coast, and the many-coloured mud-banks, touched by the sun, sent up a lamentable smell of dead weed. It was late in the afternoon when Dick and Maisie arrived on their ground, Amomma trotting patiently behind them.
‘Mf!’ said Maisie, sniffing the air. ‘I wonder what makes the sea so smelly? I don’t like it!’
‘You never like anything that isn’t made just for you,’ said Dick bluntly. ‘Give me the cartridges, and I’ll try first shot. How far does one of these little revolvers carry?’
‘Oh, half a mile,’ said Maisie, promptly. ‘At least it makes an awful noise. Be careful with the cartridges; I don’t like those jagged stick-up things on the rim. Dick, do be careful.’
‘All right. I know how to load. I’ll fire at the breakwater out there.’
He fired, and Amomma ran away bleating. The bullet threw up a spurt of mud to the right of the wood-wreathed piles.
‘Throws high and to the right. You try, Maisie. Mind, it’s loaded all round.’
Maisie took the pistol and stepped delicately to the verge of the mud, her hand firmly closed on the butt, her mouth and left eye screwed up.
Dick sat down on a tuft of bank and laughed. Amomma returned very cautiously. He was accustomed to strange experiences in his afternoon walks, and, finding the cartridge-box unguarded, made investigations with his nose. Maisie fired, but could not see where the bullet went.
‘I think it hit the post,’ she said, shading her eyes and looking out across the sailless sea.
‘I know it has gone out to the Marazion Bell-buoy,’ said Dick, with a chuckle. ‘Fire low and to the left; then perhaps you’ll get it. Oh, look at Amomma! — he’s eating the cartridges!’
Maisie turned, the revolver in her hand, just in time to see Amomma scampering away from the pebbles Dick threw after him. Nothing is sacred to a billy-goat. Being well fed and the adored of his mistress, Amomma had naturally swallowed two loaded pin-fire cartridges. Maisie hurried up to assure herself that Dick had not miscounted the tale.
‘Yes, he’s eaten two.’
‘Horrid little beast! Then they’ll joggle about inside him and blow up, and serve him right.... Oh, Dick! have I killed you?’
Revolvers are tricky things for young hands to deal with. Maisie could not explain how it had happened, but a veil of reeking smoke separated her from Dick, and she was quite certain that the pistol had gone off in his face. Then she heard him sputter, and dropped on her knees beside him, crying, ‘Dick, you aren’t hurt, are you? I didn’t mean it.’
‘Of course you didn’t, said Dick, coming out of the smoke and wiping his cheek. ‘But you nearly blinded me. That powder stuff stings awfully.’ A neat little splash of gray led on a stone showed where the bullet had gone. Maisie began to whimper.
‘Don’t,’ said Dick, jumping to his feet and shaking himself. ‘I’m not a bit hurt.’
‘No, but I might have killed you,’ protested Maisie, the corners of her mouth drooping. ‘What should I have done then?’
‘Gone home and told Mrs. Jennett.’ Dick grinned at the thought; then, softening, ‘Please don’t worry about it. Besides, we are wasting time.
We’ve got to get back to tea. I’ll take the revolver for a bit.’
Maisie would have wept on the least encouragement, but Dick’s indifference, albeit his hand was shaking as he picked up the pistol, restrained her. She lay panting on the beach while Dick methodically bombarded the breakwater. ‘Got it at last!’ he exclaimed, as a lock of weed flew from the wood.
‘Let me try,’ said Maisie, imperiously. ‘I’m all right now.’
They fired in turns till the rickety little revolver nearly shook itself to pieces, and Amomma the outcast — because he might blow up at any moment — browsed in the background and wondered why stones were thrown at him. Then they found a balk of timber floating in a pool which was commanded by the seaward slope of FortKeeling, and they sat down together before this new target.
‘Next holidays,’ said Dick, as the now thoroughly fouled revolver kicked wildly in his hand, ‘we’ll get another pistol, — central fire, — that will carry farther.’
‘There won’t b any next holidays for me,’ said Maisie. ‘I’m going away.’
‘Where to?’
‘I don’t know. My lawyers have written to Mrs. Jennett, and I’ve got to be educated somewhere, — in France, perhaps, — I don’t know where; but I shall be glad to go away.’
‘I shan’t like it a bit. I suppose I shall be left. Look here, Maisie, is it really true you’re going? Then these holidays will be the last I shall see anything of you; and I go back to school next week. I wish — — ’
The young blood turned his cheeks scarlet. Maisie was picking grass-tufts and throwing them down the slope at a yellow sea-poppy nodding all by itself to the illimitable levels of the mud-flats and the milk-white sea beyond.
‘I wish,’ she said, after a pause, ‘that I could see you again sometime.
You wish that, too?’
‘Yes, but it would have been better if — if — you had — shot straight over there — down by the breakwater.’
Maisie looked with large eyes for a moment. And this was the boy who only ten days before had decorated Amomma’s horns with cut-paper ham-frills and turned him out, a bearded derision, among the public ways! Then she dropped her eyes: this was not the boy.
‘Don’t be stupid,’ she said reprovingly, and with swift instinct attacked the side-issue. ‘How selfish you are! Just think what I should have felt if that horrid thing had killed you! I’m quite miserable enough already.’
