This is the great deep-sea song that all the St. Paul seals sing when
they are heading back to their beaches in the summer. It is a sort of
very sad seal National Anthem.
I met my mates in the morning (and oh, but I am old!)
Where roaring on the ledges the summer ground-swell
rolled;
I heard them lift the chorus that dropped the
breakers' song--
The beaches of Lukannon--two million voices strong!
_The song of pleasant stations beside the salt
lagoons,
The song of blowing squadrons that shuffled down the
dunes,
The song of midnight dances that churned the sea to
flame--
The beaches of Lukannon--before the sealers came!_
I met my mates in the morning (I'll never meet them
more!);
They came and went in legions that darkened all the
shore.
And through the foam-flecked offing as far as voice
could reach
We hailed the landing-parties and we sang them up
the beach.
_The beaches of Lukannon--the winter-wheat so
tall--
The dripping, crinkled lichens, and the sea-fog
drenching all!
The platforms of our playground, all shining smooth
and worn!
The beaches of Lukannon--the home where we were
born!_
I meet my mates in the morning, a broken, scattered
band.
Men shoot us in the water and club us on the land;
Men drive us to the Salt House like silly sheep and
tame,
And still we sing Lukannon--before the sealers came.
_Wheel down, wheel down to southward; oh,
Gooverooska go!
And tell the Deep-Sea Viceroys the story of our woe;
Ere, empty as the shark's egg the tempest flings
ashore,
The beaches of Lukannon shall know their sons no
more!_
"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!_)
[Illustration]
"RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI"
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
muskrat, 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 his 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.
[Illustration: "RIKKI-TIKKI LOOKED DOWN BETWEEN THE BOY'S COLLAR AND
NECK."]
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 veranda 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."
[Illustration: "HE PUT HIS NOSE INTO THE INK."]
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
burned 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 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--"
[Illustration: "RIKKI-TIKKI WAS AWAKE ON THE PILLOW."]
But Teddy's mother wouldn't think of anything so awful.
Early in the morning Rikki-tikki came to early breakfast in the veranda
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.
[Illustration: "HE CAME TO BREAKFAST RIDING ON TEDDY'S SHOULDER."]
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 fibers, 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.
[Illustration: "'WE ARE VERY MISERABLE,' SAID DARZEE."]
"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?" he said, "_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!"
[Illustration: "'I AM NAG,' SAID THE COBRA: 'LOOK, AND BE AFRAID!' BUT
AT THE BOTTOM OF HIS COLD HEART HE WAS 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.
[Illustration: "HE JUMPED UP IN THE AIR, AND JUST UNDER HIM WHIZZED BY
THE HEAD OF NAGAINA."]
"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 around 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 paralyzed 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 muskrat, 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.
[Illustration: "IN THE DARK HE RAN UP AGAINST CHUCHUNDRA, THE MUSKRAT."]
"Don't kill me," said Chuchundra, almost weeping. "Rikki-tikki, don't
kill me."
"Do you think a snake-killer kills muskrats?" 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 is 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 favor. 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 earthenware 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; but his eyes were red,
and he held on as the body cartwhipped 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 honor of his
family, he 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 big man had been wakened by the noise, and had
fired both barrels of a shot-gun into Nag just behind the hood.
[Illustration: "THEN RIKKI-TIKKI WAS BATTERED TO AND FRO AS A RAT IS
SHAKEN BY A DOG."]
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 to Teddy's bedroom and
spent half the rest of the night shaking himself tenderly to find out
whether he really was 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 had them there 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.
[Illustration: DARZEE'S WIFE PRETENDS TO HAVE BROKEN A WING.]
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
veranda, 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 veranda 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 veranda. "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 veranda 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 veranda, 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 veranda 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 whiplash flicked across a
horse's neck.
[Illustration: "NAGAINA FLEW DOWN THE PATH, WITH RIKKI-TIKKI BEHIND
HER."]
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 all 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.
[Illustration: "IT IS ALL OVER."]
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-tock!_ 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 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.