The Kipling Reader | Page 7

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