EPISODE: 20

"In the melon bed, on the end nearest the wall, where the sun

strikes nearly all day. She hid 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.

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 above 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 around, 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. 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 bathroom." 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 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 stuck 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 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.....