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RIKKI-TIKKI-TAVI (PART 3)

"Stop it!" said Rikki-tikki. "You don't know when to do the right thing at the right time. You're safe in your nest there, but it's war for me! Stop singing a minute, Darzee."

"Oh, great, the beautiful Rikki-tikki, I will stop," said Darzee. "What is it, О Killer of the terrible Nag?"

"Where is Nagaina, for the second time?"

"On the rubbish heap, near the dead body of Nag. Great is Rikki-tikki with the white teeth!"

"Have you ever heard where she keeps her eggs?"

"In the melon bed, near the wall, where the sun shines all day long. She hid them there weeks ago."

"Darzee, can you fly to Nagaina and pretend that your wing is broken? Let Nagaina follow you to this bush, so I'll have time to get to her eggs. If I went there now she'd see me."

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

Darzee knew that Nagaina's children were born in eggs like his own, and 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 to Nagaina and cried out:

"Oh, my wing is broken! The boy in the house broke it!"

Nagaina looked at the bird and hissed: "You warned Rikki-tikki when I wanted to kill him. You have found a wrong place to come!" And she moved closer to the bird.

"The boy broke it with a stone!" cried the bird.

"Well, I am going to tell you something you will like. Before night comes, the boy in the house will be as dead as my husband. Listen to me! What is the use of running away? I am sure to catch you. Little fool, look at me!"

But Darzee's wife moved away from the wall in little jumps and the cobra followed her. Rikki-tikki ran to the melon bed near the wall and there, in the warm ground, he found twenty-five snake's eggs covered with white skin.

"I am not late!" he said. He could see the baby cobras inside the eggs, and he knew that the minute they got out they could each kill a man or a mongoose. He broke the eggs as fast as he could and killed the little cobras. At last there was only one egg left, when Rikki-tikki heard Darzee's wife screaming: "Rikki-tikki, Nagaina is in the house, and — oh, come quickly — she is going to kill the people!"

Rikki-tikki took the last egg into his mouth and ran to the house. Teddy and his mother and father were at the table on the veranda, but Rikki-tikki saw that they were not eating anything. They sat stone-still, and their faces were white. Nagaina was near Teddy's chair singing a song of triumph.

"Son of the big man that killed Nag," she said, "I am not ready yet. Wait a little. Keep very quiet, all you three. If you move I attack, and if you do not move I attack. Oh, foolish people, who killed my Nag!"

Teddy was looking at his father, and all his father could do was to whisper: "Teddy, you mustn't move. Teddy, don't move."

Then Rikki-tikki came up and cried: "Turn round, Nagaina; turn and fight!"

"You are not late, are you?" said she, without moving her eyes. "Look at your friends, Rikki-tikki. They are quiet and white; they are afraid. If you come nearer I'll attack."

"Look at your eggs," said Rikki-tikki, "in the melon bed. Go and look, Nagaina!"

The big snake turned and she saw the egg on the floor in front of Rikki-tikki. "Ah-h! Give it to me," she said.

Rikki-tikki's eyes grew red. "What price for the last egg? For a young king cobra? The ants are eating all the others down by the melon bed."

Nagaina turned round forgetting everything for the sake of the egg, and at the same moment Teddy's father caught Teddy by the shoulder. In a second they were in the house.

"Tricked! Tricked! The boy is safe, and it was I — I — I that caught Nag last night in the bathroom." Then he began to jump up and down, all four feet together, his head close to the floor. "He threw me up and down, but he could not get me off. He was dead before the big man fired his gun. I did it. Rikki-tikki-tck-tck! Come then, Nagaina. Come and fight with me."

"Give me the egg, Rikki-tikki. Give me the last of my eggs, and I will go away and never come back," she asked.

"Yes, you will go away, and you will never come back; because you will be dead in a minute! Fight, Nagaina! The big man has gone for his gun! Fight!"

Rikki-tikki was running all round Nagaina. Nagaina tried to get him again and again. Rikki-tikki jumped up and backward. Again and again and again she tried. Then Rikki-tikki danced in a circle to get behind her and he forgot about the egg. It still lay on the veranda, and Nagaina came nearer and nearer to it, till at last she caught it in her mouth, turned to the veranda steps, and flew like an arrow down the path.

Rikki-tikki knew that he must catch her, or all the trouble would begin again. In a moment Nagaina was near the rat-hole. Rikki-tikki caught the end of her tail and down he went after her. It was dark in the hole and Rikki-tikki saw nothing inside. He just held on the end of her tail.

When he disappeared after the cobra, Darzee said: "Oh, we must sing his death-song! Brave Rikki-tikki is dead! Nagaina will kill him underground."

So he sang a very sad song and when he came to its end, Rikki-tikki came out of the hole. Darzee stopped with a little shout.

"It is all over," Rikki-tikki. "Nagaina will never come out again."

Rikki-tikki felt very tired and fell asleep where he was — he slept and slept till it was late in the after¬noon.

"Now," he said when he woke up, "I will go back to the house. Tell the garden that Nagaina is dead!"

Every bird was happy with the news, and even the frogs started their happy songs, because Nag and Nagaina often ate frogs as well as little birds.

When Rikki got to the house, Teddy and Teddy's mother (she still looked very white) and Teddy's father came out and thanked him. That night he ate all that they gave to 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," Teddy's mother said to her husband. "Just think, he saved all our lives!"

Rikki-tikki woke up with a jump, because all the mongooses are light sleepers.

"Oh, it's you," said he. "What are you talking about? You are safe now."

Rikki-tikki had a right to be proud of himself; but he did not grow too proud, and he kept that garden with tooth and jump and bite, till never a cobra could show its head inside the walls.