POETRY

THE NATIVE BORN

THE FLOWERS

MUNICIPAL

THE COASTWISE LIGHTS

THE ENGLISH FLAG

ENGLAND'S ANSWER

THE OVERLAND MAIL

IN SPRING TIME

'RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI'

At the hole where he went in

Red-Eye called to Wrinkle-Skin.

Hear what little Red-Eye saith:

'Nag, come up and dance with death!'

Eye to eye and head to head,

(_Keep the measure, Nag_.)

This shall end when one is dead;

(_At thy pleasure, Nag_.)

Turn for turn and twist for twist--

(_Run and hide thee, Nag_.)

Hah! The hooded Death has missed!

(_Woe betide thee, Nag!_)

This is the story of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought

single-handed, through the bath-rooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee

cantonment. Darzee, the tailor-bird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the

musk-rat, who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but

always creeps round by the wall, gave him advice; but Rikki-tikki did

the real fighting.

He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail,

but quite like a weasel in his head and habits. His eyes and the end

of his restless nose were pink; he could scratch himself anywhere he

pleased, with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use; he could

fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle-brush, and his

war-cry, as he scuttled through the long grass, was:

'_Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!_'

One day, a high summer flood washed him out of the burrow where he

lived with his father and mother, and carried him, kicking and

clucking, down a roadside ditch. He found a little wisp of grass

floating there, and clung to it till he lost his senses. When he

revived, he was lying in the hot sun on the middle of a garden path,

very draggled indeed, and a small boy was saying: 'Here's a dead

mongoose. Let's have a funeral.'

'No,' said his mother; 'let's take him in and dry him. Perhaps he

isn't really dead.'

They took him into the house, and a big man picked him up between his

finger and thumb, and said he was not dead but half choked; so they

wrapped him in cotton-wool, and warmed him and he opened his eyes and

sneezed.

'Now,' said the big man (he was an Englishman who had just moved into

the bungalow); 'don't frighten him and we'll see what he'll do.'

It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because

he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity. The motto of all the

mongoose family is 'Run and find out'; and Rikki-tikki was a true

mongoose. He looked at the cotton-wool, decided that it was not good

to eat, ran all round the table, sat up and put his fur in order,

scratched himself, and jumped on the small boy's shoulder.

'Don't be frightened, Teddy,' said his father. 'That's his way of

making friends.'

'Ouch! He's tickling under my chin,' said Teddy.

Rikki-tikki looked down between the boy's collar and neck, snuffed at

his ear, and climbed down to the floor, where he sat rubbing his

nose.

'Good gracious,' said Teddy's mother, 'and that's a wild creature! I

suppose he's so tame because we've been kind to him.'

'All mongooses are like that,' said her husband. 'If Teddy doesn't

pick him up by the tail, or try to put him in a cage, he'll run in

and out of the house all day long. Let's give him something to eat.'

They gave him a little piece of raw meat. Rikki tikki liked it

immensely, and when it was finished he went out into the verandah and

sat in the sunshine and fluffed up his fur to make it dry to the

roots. Then he felt better.

'There are more things to find out about in this house,' he said to

himself, 'than all my family could find out in all their lives. I

shall certainly stay and find out.'

He spent all that day roaming over the house. He nearly drowned

himself in the bath tubs, put his nose into the ink on a

writing-table, and burnt it on the end of the big man's cigar, for he

climbed up in the big man's lap to see how writing was done. At

nightfall he ran into Teddy's nursery to watch how the kerosene-lamps

were lighted, and when Teddy went to bed Rikki-tikki climbed up too;

but he was a restless companion, because he had to get up and attend

to every noise all through the night, and find out what made it.

Teddy's mother and father came in, the last thing, to look at their

boy, and Rikki-tikki was awake on the pillow. 'I don't like that,'

said Teddy's mother; 'he may bite the child.' 'He'll do no such

thing,' said the father. 'Teddy's safer with that little beast than

if he had a bloodhound to watch him. If a snake came into the nursery

now----'

But Teddy's mother wouldn't think of anything so awful.

Early in the morning Rikki-tikki came to early breakfast-in the

verandah riding on Teddy's shoulder, and they gave him banana and

some boiled egg; and he sat on all their laps one after the other,

because every well-brought-up mongoose always hopes to be a

house-mongoose some day and have rooms to run about in, and

Rikki-tikki's mother (she used to live in the General's house at

Segowlee) had carefully told Rikki what to do if ever he came across

white men.

Then Rikki-tikki went out into the garden to see what was to be seen.

It was a large garden, only half cultivated, with bushes as big as

summer-houses of Marshal Niel roses, lime and orange trees, clumps of

bamboos, and thickets of high grass. Rikki-tikki licked his lips.

'This is a splendid hunting-ground,' he said, and his tail grew

bottle-brushy at the thought of it, and he scuttled up and down the

garden, snuffing here and there till he heard very sorrowful voices

in a thorn-bush.

It was Darzee, the tailor-bird, and his wife. They had made a

beautiful nest by pulling two big leaves together and stitching them

up the edges with fibres, and had filled the hollow with cotton and

downy fluff. The nest swayed to and fro, as they sat on the rim and

cried.

'What is the matter?' asked Rikki-tikki.

'We are very miserable,' said Darzee. 'One of our babies fell out of

the nest yesterday, and Nag ate him.'

'H'm!' said Rikki-tikki, 'that is very sad--but I am a stranger here.

Who is Nag?'

Darzee and his wife only cowered down in the nest without answering,

for from the thick grass at the foot of the bush there came a low

hiss--a horrid cold sound that made Rikki-tikki jump back two clear

feet. Then inch by inch out of the grass rose up the head and spread

hood of Nag, the big black cobra, and he was five feet long from

tongue to tail. When he had lifted one-third of himself clear of the

ground, he stayed balancing to and fro exactly as a dandelion-tuft

balances in the wind, and he looked at Rikki-tikki with the wicked

snake's eyes that never change their expression, whatever the snake

may be thinking of.

'Who is Nag?' said he. '_I_ am Nag. The great god Brahm put his mark

upon all our people when the first cobra spread his hood to keep the

sun off Brahm as he slept. Look, and be afraid!'

He spread out his hood more than ever, and Rikki-tikki saw the

spectacle-mark on the back of it that looks exactly like the eye part

of a hook-and-eye fastening. He was afraid for the minute; but it is

impossible for a mongoose to stay frightened for any length of time,

and though Rikki-tikki had never met a live cobra before, his mother

had fed him on dead ones, and he knew that all a grown mongoose's

business in life was to fight and eat snakes. Nag knew that too, and

at the bottom of his cold heart he was afraid.

'Well,' said Rikki-tikki, and his tail began to fluff up again,

'marks or no marks, do you think it is right for you to eat

fledglings out of a nest?'

Nag was thinking to himself, and watching the least little movement

in the grass behind Rikki-tikki. He knew that mongooses in the garden

meant death sooner or later for him and his family, but he wanted to

get Rikki-tikki off his guard. So he dropped his head a little, and

put it on one side.

'Let us talk,' he said. 'You eat eggs. Why should not I eat birds?'

'Behind you! Look behind you!' sang Darzee.

Rikki-tikki knew better than to waste time in staring. He jumped up

in the air as high as he could go, and just under him whizzed by the

head of Nagaina, Nag's wicked wife. She had crept up behind him as he

was talking, to make an end of him; and he heard her savage hiss as

the stroke missed. He came down almost across her back, and if he had

been an old mongoose he would have known that then was the time to

break her back with one bite; but he was afraid of the terrible

lashing return-stroke of the cobra. He bit, indeed, but did not bite

long enough, and he jumped clear of the whisking tail, leaving

Nagaina torn and angry.

'Wicked, wicked Darzee!' said Nag, lashing up as high as he could

reach toward the nest in the thorn-bush; but Darzee had built it out

of reach of snakes, and it only swayed to and fro.

Rikki-tikki felt his eyes growing red and hot (when a mongoose's eyes

grow red, he is angry), and he sat back on his tail and hind legs

like a little kangaroo, and looked all round him, and chattered with

rage. But Nag and Nagaina had disappeared into the grass. When a

snake misses its stroke, it never says anything or gives any sign of

what it means to do next. Rikki-tikki did not care to follow them,

for he did not feel sure that he could manage two snakes at once. So

he trotted off to the gravel path near the house, and sat down to

think. It was a serious matter for him.

If you read the old books of natural history, you will find they say

that when the mongoose fights the snake and happens to get bitten, he

runs off and eats some herb that cures him. That is not true. The

victory is only a matter of quickness of eye and quickness of

foot,--snake's blow against mongoose's jump,--and as no eye can

follow the motion of a snake's head when it strikes, that makes

things much more wonderful than any magic herb. Rikki-tikki knew he

was a young mongoose, and it made him all the more pleased to think

that he had managed to escape a blow from behind. It gave him

confidence in himself, and when Teddy came running down the path,

Rikki-tikki was ready to be petted.

But just as Teddy was stooping, something flinched a little in the

dust, and a tiny voice said: 'Be careful. I am death!' It was Karait,

the dusty brown snakeling that lies for choice on the dusty earth;

and his bite is as dangerous as the cobra's. But he is so small that

nobody thinks of him, and so he does the more harm to people.

Rikki-tikki's eyes grew red again, and he danced up to Karait with

the peculiar rocking, swaying motion that he had inherited from his

family. It looks very funny, but it is so perfectly balanced a gait

that you can fly off from it at any angle you please; and in dealing

with snakes this is an advantage. If Rikki-tikki had only known, he

was doing a much more dangerous thing than fighting Nag, for Karait

is so small, and can turn so quickly, that unless Rikki bit him close

to the back of the head, he would get the return-stroke in his eye or

lip. But Rikki did not know: his eyes were all red, and he rocked

back and forth, looking for a good place to hold. Karait struck out.

Rikki jumped sideways and tried to run in, but the wicked little

dusty gray head lashed within a fraction of his shoulder, and he had

to jump over the body, and the head followed his heels close.

Teddy shouted to the house: 'Oh, look here! Our mongoose is killing a

snake'; and Rikki-tikki heard a scream from Teddy's mother. His

father ran out with a stick, but by the time he came up, Karait had

lunged out once too far, and Rikki-tikki had sprung, jumped on the

snake's back, dropped his head far between his fore-legs, bitten as

high up the back as he could get hold, and rolled away. That bite

paralysed Karait, and Rikki-tikki was just going to eat him up from

the tail, after the custom of his family at dinner, when he

remembered that a full meal makes a slow mongoose, and if he wanted

all his strength and quickness ready, he must keep himself thin.

He went away for a dust-bath under the castor-oil bushes, while

Teddy's father beat the dead Karait. 'What is the use of that?'

thought Rikki-tikki. 'I have settled it all'; and then Teddy's mother

picked him up from the dust and hugged him, crying that he had saved

Teddy from death, and Teddy's father said that he was a providence,

and Teddy looked on with big scared eyes. Rikki-tikki was rather

amused at all the fuss, which, of course, he did not understand.

Teddy's mother might just as well have petted Teddy for playing in

the dust. Rikki was thoroughly enjoying himself.

That night, at dinner, walking to and fro among the wine-glasses on

the table, he could have stuffed himself three times over with nice

things; but he remembered Nag and Nagaina, and though it was very

pleasant to be patted and petted by Teddy's mother, and to sit on

Teddy's shoulder, his eyes would get red from time to time, and he

would go off into his long war cry of '_Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!_'

Teddy carried him off to bed, and insisted on Rikki-tikki sleeping

under his chin. Rikki-tikki was too well bred to bite or scratch, but

as soon as Teddy was asleep he went off for his nightly walk round

the house, and in the dark he ran up against Chuchundra, the

musk-rat, creeping round by the wall. Chuchundra is a broken-hearted

little beast, He whimpers and cheeps all the night, trying to make up

his mind to run into the middle of the room, but he never gets there.

'Don't kill me,' said Chuchundra, almost weeping. 'Rikki-tikki, don't

kill me.'

'Do you think a snake-killer kills musk-rats?' said Rikki-tikki

scornfully.

'Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes,' said Chuchundra, more

sorrowfully than ever. 'And how am I to be sure that Nag won't

mistake me for you some dark night?'

'There's not the least danger,' said Rikki-tikki; 'but Nag is in the

garden, and I know you don't go there.'

'My cousin Chua, the rat, told me----' said Chuchundra, and then he

stopped.

'Told you what?'

'H'sh! Nag is everywhere, Rikki-tikki. You should have talked to Chua

in the garden.'

'I didn't--so you must tell me. Quick, Chuchundra, or I'll bite you!'

Chuchundra sat down and cried till the tears rolled off his whiskers.

'I am a very poor man,' he sobbed. 'I never had spirit enough to run

out into the middle of the room. H'sh! I mustn't tell you anything.

Can't you _hear_, Rikki-tikki?'

Rikki-tikki listened. The house was as still as still, but he thought

he could just catch the faintest _scratch-scratch_ in the world,--a

noise as faint as that of a wasp walking on a window-pane,--the dry

scratch of a snake's scales on brickwork.

'That's Nag or Nagaina,' he said to himself; 'and he's crawling into

the bath-room sluice. You're right, Chuchundra; I should have talked

to Chua.'

He stole off to Teddy's bath-room, but there was nothing there, and

then to Teddy's mother's bath-room. At the bottom of the smooth

plaster wall there was a brick pulled out to make a sluice for the

bath-water, and as Rikki-tikki stole in by the masonry curb where the

bath is put, he heard Nag and Nagaina whispering together outside in

the moonlight.

'When the house is emptied of people,' said Nagaina to her husband,

'_he_ will have to go away, and then the garden will be our own

again. Go in quietly, and remember that the big man who killed Karait

is the first one to bite. Then come out and tell me, and we will hunt

for Rikki-tikki together.'

'But are you sure that there is anything to be gained by killing the

people?' said Nag.

'Everything. When there were no people in the bungalow, did we have

any mongoose in the garden? So long as the bungalow is empty, we are

king and queen of the garden; and remember that as soon as our eggs

in the melon-bed hatch (as they may to-morrow), our children will

need room and quiet.'

I had not thought of that,' said Nag. 'I will go, but there is no

need that we should hunt for Rikki-tikki afterward. I will kill the

big man and his wife, and the child if I can, and come away quietly.

Then the bungalow will be empty, and Rikki-tikki will go.'

Rikki-tikki tingled all over with rage and hatred at this, and then

Nag's head came through the sluice, and his five feet of cold body

followed it. Angry as he was, Rikki-tikki was very frightened as he

saw the size of the big cobra. Nag coiled himself up, raised his

head, and looked into the bath-room in the dark, and Rikki could see

his eyes glitter.

'Now, if I kill him here, Nagaina will know; and if I fight him on

the open floor, the odds are in his favour. What am I to do?' said

Rikki-tikki-tavi.

Nag waved to and fro, and then Rikki-tikki heard him drinking from

the biggest water-jar that was used to fill the bath. 'That is good,'

said the snake. 'Now, when Karait was killed, the big man had a

stick. He may have that stick still, but when he comes in to bathe in

the morning he will not have a stick. I shall wait here till he

comes. Nagaina--do you hear me?--I shall wait here in the cool till

daytime.'

There was no answer from outside, so Rikki-tikki knew Nagaina had

gone away. Nag coiled himself down, coil by coil, round the bulge at

the bottom of the water-jar, and Rikki-tikki stayed still as death.

After an hour he began to move, muscle by muscle, toward the jar. Nag

was asleep, and Rikki-tikki looked at his big back, wondering which

would be the best place for a good hold. 'If I don't break his back

at the first jump,' said Rikki, 'he can still fight; and if he

fights--O Rikki!' He looked at the thickness of the neck below the

hood, but that was too much for him; and a bite near the tail would

only make Nag savage.

'It must be the head,' he said at last; 'the head above the hood; and

when I am once there, I must not let go.'

Then he jumped. The head was lying a little clear of the water-jar,

under the curve of it; and, as his teeth met, Rikki braced his back

against the bulge of the red earthen-rare to hold down the head.

This gave him just one second's purchase, and he made the most of it.

Then he was battered to and fro as a rat is shaken by a dog--to and

fro on the floor, up and down, and round in great circles; at his

eyes were red, and he held on as the body cart-whipped over the

floor, upsetting the tin dipper and the soap-dish and the

flesh-brush, and banged against the tin side of the bath. As he held

he closed his jaws tighter and tighter, for he made sure he would be

banged to death, and, for the honour of his family, preferred to be

found with his teeth locked. He was dizzy, aching, and felt shaken to

pieces when something went off like a thunderclap just behind him; a

hot wind knocked him senseless, and red fire singed his fur. The man

had been wakened by the noise, and had fired both barrels of a

shot-gun into Nag just behind the hood.

Rikki-tikki held on with his eyes shut, for now he was quite sure he

was dead; but the head did not move, and the big man picked him up

and said: 'It's the mongoose again, Alice; the little chap has saved

_our_ lives now.' Then Teddy's mother came in with a very white face,

and saw what was left of Nag, and Rikki-tikki dragged himself Teddy's

bedroom and spent half the rest of the night shaking himself

tenderly to find out whether he really broken into forty pieces, as

he fancied.

When morning came he was very stiff, but well pleased with his

doings. 'Now I have Nagaina to settle with, and she will be worse

than five Nags, and there's no knowing when the eggs she spoke of

will hatch. Goodness! I must go and see Darzee,' he said.

Without waiting for breakfast, Rikki-tikki ran to the thorn-bush

where Darzee was singing a song of triumph at the top of his voice.

The news of Nag's death was all over the garden, for the sweeper had

thrown the body on the rubbish-heap.

'Oh, you stupid tuft of feathers!' said Rikki-tikki angrily. 'Is this

the time to sing?'

'Nag is dead--is dead--is dead!' sang Darzee. 'The valiant

Rikki-tikki caught him by the head and held fast. The big man brought

the bang-stick, and Nag fell in two pieces! He will never eat my

babies again.'

'All that's true enough; but where's Nagaina?' said Rikki-tikki,

looking carefully round him.

'Nagaina came to the bath-room sluice and called for Nag,' Darzee

went on; 'and Nag came out on the end of a stick--the sweeper picked

him up on the end of a stick and threw him upon the rubbish-heap. Let

us sing about the great, the red-eyed Rikki-tikki!' and Darzee filled

his throat and sang.

'If I could get up to your nest, I'd roll all your babies out!' said

Rikki-tikki. 'You don't know when to do the right thing at the right

time. You're safe enough in your nest there, but it's war for me down

here. Stop singing a minute, Darzee.'

'For the great, the beautiful Rikki-tikki's sake I will stop,' said

Darzee. 'What is it, O killer of the terrible Nag?'

'Where is Nagaina, for the third time?'

'On the rubbish-heap by the stables, mourning for Nag. Great is

Rikki-tikki with the white teeth.'

'Bother my white teeth! Have you ever heard where she keeps her

eggs?'

'In the melon-bed, on the end nearest the wall, where the sun strikes

nearly all day. She hid them three weeks ago.'

'And you never thought it worth while to tell me? The end nearest the

wall, you said?'

'Rikki-tikki, you are not going to eat her eggs?'

'Not eat exactly; no. Darzee, if you have a grain of sense you will

fly off to the stables and pretend that your wing is broken, and let

Nagaina chase you away to this bush! I must get to the melon-bed, and

if I went there now she'd see me.'

Darzee was a feather-brained little fellow who could never hold more

than one idea at a time in his head; and just because he knew that

Nagaina's children were born in eggs like his own, he didn't think at

first that it was fair to kill them. But his wife was a sensible

bird, and she knew that cobra's eggs meant young cobras later on; so

she flew off from the nest, and left Darzee to keep the babies warm,

and continue his song about the death of Nag. Darzee was very like a

man in some ways.

She fluttered in front of Nagaina by the rubbish-heap, and cried out,

'Oh, my wing is broken! The boy in the house threw a stone at me and

broke it.' Then she fluttered more desperately than ever.

Nagaina lifted up her head and hissed, 'You warned Rikki-tikki when

I would have killed him. Indeed and truly, you've chosen a bad place

to be lame in.' And she moved toward Darzee's wife, slipping along

over the dust.

'The boy broke it with a stone!' shrieked Darzee's wife.

'Well! It may be some consolation to you when you're dead to know

that I shall settle accounts with the boy. My husband lies on the

rubbish-heap this morning, but before night the boy in the house will

lie very still. What is the use of running away? I am sure to catch

you. Little fool, look at me!'

Darzee's wife knew better than to do _that_, for a bird who looks at

a snake's eyes gets so frightened that she cannot move. Darzee's wife

fluttered on, piping sorrowfully, and never leaving the ground, and

Nagaina quickened her pace.

Rikki-tikki heard them going up the path from the stables, and he

raced for the end of the melon-patch near the wall. There, in the

warm litter about the melons, very cunningly hidden, he found

twenty-five eggs, about the size of a bantam's eggs, but with

whitish skin instead of shell.

'I was not a day too soon,' he said; for he could see the baby cobras

curled up inside the skin, and he knew that the minute they were

hatched they could each kill a man or a mongoose. He bit off the tops

of the eggs as fast as he could, taking care to crush the young

cobras, and turned over the litter from time to time to see whether

he had missed any. At last there were only three eggs left, and

Rikki-tikki began to chuckle to himself, when he heard Darzee's wife

screaming:

'Rikki-tikki, I led Nagaina toward the house, and she has gone into

the verandah, and--oh, come quickly--she means killing!'

Rikki-tikki smashed two eggs, and tumbled backward down the melon-bed

with the third egg in his mouth, and scuttled to the verandah as hard

as he could put foot to the ground. Teddy and his mother and father

were there at early breakfast; but Rikki-tikki saw that they were not

eating anything. They sat stone-still, and their faces were white.

Nagaina was coiled up on the matting by Teddy's chair, within easy

striking distance of Teddy's bare leg, and she was swaying to and fro

singing a song of triumph.

'Son of the big man that killed Nag,' she hissed, 'stay still. I am

not ready yet. Wait a little. Keep very still, all you three. If you

move I strike, and if you do not move I strike. Oh, foolish people,

who killed my Nag!'

Teddy's eyes were fixed on his father, and all his father could do

was to whisper, 'Sit still, Teddy. You mustn't move. Teddy, keep

still.'

Then Rikki-tikki came up and cried: 'Turn round, Nagaina; turn and

fight!'

'All in good time,' said she, without moving her eyes. 'I will settle

my account with _you_ presently. Look at your friends, Rikki-tikki.

They are still and white; they are afraid. They dare not move, and if

you come a step nearer I strike.'

'Look at your eggs,' said Rikki-tikki, 'in the melon-bed near the

wall. Go and look, Nagaina.'

The big snake turned half round, and saw the egg on the verandah.

'Ah-h! Give it to me,' she said.

Rikki-tikki put his paws one on each side of the egg, and his eyes

were blood-red. 'What price for a snake's egg? For a young cobra? For

a young king-cobra? For the last--the very last of the brood? The

ants are eating all the others down by the melon-bed.'

Nagaina spun clear round, forgetting everything for the sake of the

one egg; and Rikki-tikki saw Teddy's father shoot out a big hand,

catch Teddy by the shoulder, and drag him across the little table

with the tea-cups, safe and out of reach of Nagaina.

'Tricked! Tricked! Tricked! _Rikk-tck-tck!_' chuckled Rikki-tikki.

'The boy is safe, and it was I--I--I that caught Nag by the hood last

night in the bath-room.' Then he began to jump up and down, all four

feet together, his head close to the floor. 'He threw me to and fro,

but he could not shake me off. He was dead before the big man blew

him in two. I did it. _Rikki-tikki-tck-tck!_ Come then, Nagaina. Come

and fight with me. You shall not be a widow long.'

Nagaina saw that she had lost her chance of killing Teddy, and the

egg lay between Rikki-tikki's paws. 'Give me the egg, Rikki-tikki.

Give me the last of my eggs, and I will go away and never come back,'

she said, lowering her hood.

'Yes, you will go away, and you will never come back; for you will

go to the rubbish-heap with Nag. Fight, widow! The big man has gone

for his gun! Fight!'

Rikki-tikki was bounding all round Nagaina, keeping just out of

reach of her stroke, his little eyes like hot coals. Nagaina

gathered herself together, and flung out at him. Rikki-tikki jumped

up and backward. Again and again and again she struck, and each time

her head came with a whack on the matting of the verandah, and she

gathered herself together like a watch-spring. Then Rikki-tikki

danced in a circle to get behind her, and Nagaina spun round to keep

her head to his head, so that the rustle of her tail on the matting

sounded like dry leaves blown along by the wind.

He had forgotten the egg. It still lay on the verandah, and Nagaina

came nearer and nearer to it, till at last, while Rikki-tikki was

drawing breath, she caught it in her mouth, turned to the verandah

steps and flew like an arrow down the path, with Rikki-tikki behind

her. When the cobra runs for her life, she goes like a whip-lash

flicked across a horse's neck.

Rikki-tikki knew that he must catch her, or all the trouble would

begin again. She headed straight for the long grass by the

thorn-bush, and as he was running Rikki-tikki heard Darzee still

singing his foolish little song of triumph. But Darzee's wife was

wiser. She flew off her nest as Nagaina came along and flapped her

wings about Nagaina's head. If Darzee had helped they might have

turned her; but Nagaina only lowered her hood and went on. Still, the

instant's delay brought Rikki-tikki up to her, and as she plunged

into the rat-hole where she and Nag used to live, his little white

teeth were clenched on her tail, and he went down with her--and very

few mongooses, however wise and old they may be, care to follow a

cobra into its hole. It was dark in the hole; and Rikki-tikki never

knew when it might open out and give Nagaina room to turn and strike

at him. He held on savagely, and struck out his feet to act as brakes

on the dark slope of the hot, moist earth.

Then the grass by the mouth of the hole stopped waving, and Darzee

said: 'It is all over with Rikki-tikki! We must sing his death-song.

Valiant Rikki-tikki is dead! For Nagaina will surely kill him

underground.'

So he sang a very mournful song that he made up on the spur of the

minute, and just as he got to the most touching part the grass

quivered again, and Rikki-tikki, covered with dirt, dragged himself

out of the hole leg by leg, licking his whiskers. Darzee stopped with

a little shout. Rikki-tikki shook some of the dust out of his fur and

sneezed. 'It is all over,' he said. 'The widow will never come out

again.' And the red ants that live between the grass stems heard him,

and began to troop down one after another to see if he had spoken the

truth.

Rikki-tikki curled himself up in the grass and slept where he

was--slept and slept till it was late in the afternoon, for he had

done a hard day's work.

'Now,' he said, when he awoke, 'I will go back to the house. Tell the

Coppersmith, Darzee, and he will tell the garden that Nagaina is

dead.'

The Coppersmith is a bird who makes a noise exactly like the beating

of a little hammer on a copper pot; and the reason he is always

making it is because he is the town-crier to every Indian garden, and

tells all the news to everybody who cares to listen. As Rikki-tikki

went up the path, he heard his 'attention' notes like a tiny

dinner-gong; and then the steady '_Ding-dong-lock!_ Nag is

dead--_dong!_ Nagaina is dead! _Ding-dong-tock!_' That set all the

birds in the garden singing, and the frogs croaking; for Nag and

Nagaina used to eat frogs as well as little birds.

When Rikki got to the house, Teddy and Teddy's mother (she looked

very white still, for she had been fainting) and Teddy's father

came out and almost cried over him; and that night he ate all

that was given him till he could I eat no more, and went to bed on

Teddy's shoulder, where Teddy's mother saw him when she came to look

late at night.

'He saved our lives and Teddy's life,' she said to her husband.

'Just think, he saved all our lives.'

Rikki-tikki woke up with a jump, for all the mongooses are light

sleepers.

'Oh, it's you,' said he. 'What are you bothering for? All the cobras

are dead; and if they weren't, I'm here.'

Rikki-tikki had a right to be proud of himself; but he did not grow

too proud, and he kept that garden as a mongoose should keep it, with

tooth and jump and spring and bite, till never a cobra dared show its

head inside the walls.