The Kipling Reader | Page 6

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