Rikki-Tikki-Tavi | Page 3

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, this 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 wriggled 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 his 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 forelegs, 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 might
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,