И'3fг'3fо'3fр'3fь'3f Х'3fо'3fх'3fл'3fо'3fв'3f - CONTENTS

"All mongooses are like that," said her husband. "If Teddy doesn't pull him by the tail, or try to put him in a cage, he'll run in and out of the house all day long. Let's give him something to eat."

They gave him a little piece of raw meat. Rikki-tikki liked it very much, and when he finished he went out into the veranda and sat in the sunshine and fluffed up his fur to make it dry to the roots. Then he felt better.

"I can find out about more things in this house," he said to himself, "than all my family could find out in all their lives. I shall certainly stay and find out."

He spent all that day running over the house. He nearly drowned himself in the bath-tubs, put his nose into the ink on a writing-table, and burned it on the end of the big man's cigar, for he climbed up in the big man's lap to see how he was writing. In the evening he ran into Teddy's room to watch how kerosene lamps were lighted, and when Teddy went to bed Rikki-tikki climbed up too, but he was a restless companion, because he had to get up and find out about every noise all the night long. When Teddy's mother and father came in to look at their boy, Rikki-tikki was sitting on the pillow. "I don't like that," said Teddy's mother; "he may bite the child." "He'll not do such a thing," said the father. "Teddy is safe with that little beast. If a snake comes into the room now"

But Teddy's mother didn't even want to hear of such a terrible thing.

Early in the morning Rikki-tikki came to breakfast in the veranda riding on Teddy's shoulder, and they gave him banana and some boiled egg; and he sat on all their laps one after the other, because Rikki-tikki's mother (she used to live in a general's house) had told him what to do if ever he came to the house of Man.

Rikki-tikki went out into the garden. It was a large garden with bushes, fruit trees, bamboos and high grass. Rikki-tikki licked his lips. "This is a splendid hunting-ground," he said and he ran up and down the garden, sniffing here and there till he heard very sorrowful voices in a bush.

It was Darzee, the tailor-bird, and his wife. They had made a beautiful nest of two big leaves, cotton and fluff. The nest swayed to and fro, as they sat in it and cried.

"What is the matter?" asked Rikki-tikki.

"We are very unhappy," said Darzee. "One of our babies fell out of the nest yesterday and Nag ate him."

"H'm!" said Rikki-tikki, "that is very sad – but I am a stranger here. Who is Nag?"

Darzee and his wife only bent down in the nest without answering, for from the thick grass at the foot of the bush there came a low hiss – a terrible sound that made Rikki-tikki jump back almost two feet. Then out of the grass rose up the head and hood of Nag, the big black cobra, and he was five feet long from tongue to tail. When he had lifted one-third of himself from the ground, he looked at Rikki-tikki with the wicked snake's eyes that never change their expression.

"Who is Nag?" he said. "I am Nag. The great god Brahm put his mark upon all our people when the first cobra' spread his hood to keep the sun off Brahm as he slept. Look, and be afraid!"

He spread out his hood, and Rikki-tikki saw the spectacle-mark' on the back of it and at that moment he was afraid; but it is impossible for a mongoose to be afraid for a long time, and though Rikki-tikki had never met alive cobra before, his mother had given him dead ones to eat, and he knew that a grown mongoose's business in life was to fight and eat snakes. Nag knew that too, and at the bottom of his cold heart he was afraid.

"Well," said Rikki-tikki, and his tail began to fluff up again, "marks or no marks, do you think it is right for ii you to eat babies out of a nest?"

Nag was thinking to himself, and watching each little movement in the grass behind Rikki-tikki. He knew that mongooses in the garden meant death sooner or later for him and his family; but he wanted to get Rikki-tikki off his guard.' So he dropped his head a little, and put it on one side.

"Let us talk," he said. "You eat eggs. Why should not I eat birds?"

"Behind you! Look behind you!" sang Darzee.

Rikki-tikki jumped up in the air as high as he could, and just under him whizzed by the head of Nagaina, Nag's wicked wife. She crept up behind him as he was talking, to make an end of him; and he heard her savage hiss as the stroke missed.' He came down almost on her back, and then was the time to break her back with one bite – but he was a young mongoose and did not know it and he was afraid of the terrible return-stroke of the cobra. He bit, indeed, but did not bite long enough, and he jumped off her tail, leaving Nagaina wounded and angry.

"Wicked, wicked Darzee!" said Nag, lifting up his head as high as he could toward the nest; but Darzee had built it out of reach' of snakes, and it only swayed to and fro. Rikki-tikki felt that his eyes were 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 around him angrily, 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 is going to do next. Rikki-tikki did not want to follow them, for he was not sure that he could manage two snakes at once. So he trotted of to the path near the house, and sat down to think. It was a serious matter for him.

The victory is only a matter of quickness of eye and quickness of foot,– snake's blow against mongoose's jump,– and no eye can follow the turn of a snake's head when it strikes. Rikki-tikki knew he was a young mongoose, and it made him very glad to think that he had managed to escape a blow from behind. It made him believe in himself, and when Teddy came running down the path, Rikki-tikki was ready to play with him.

But as Teddy was stooping, something moved in the dust, and a faint voice said: "Be careful. I am Death!" It was Karait, the dusty brown Snakeling that lies 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 much harm to people.

Rikki-tikki's eyes grew red again, and he danced up to Karait rocking and swaying like all the mongooses of his family. Rikki-tikki did not know that he was doing a much more dangerous thing than fighting Nag, for Karait is so small, and can turn so quickly, that if Rikki does not bite him close to the back of the head, he may get the return stroke in his eye or lip. But Rikki did not know it and his eyes were all red, and he rocked back and forth, looking for a good place to bite. Karait struck out. Rikki jumped aside, but the wicked little dusty gray head struck almost at his shoulder, and Rikki had to jump over him.

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 ran away too far, and Rikki-tikki had jumped on the snake's back, bit as high up the back as he could, 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, when he remembered that a full meal makes a slow mongoose, and if he wanted to be strong and quick his stomach must be empty.

He went away for a dust-bath under the bushes, while Teddy's father beat the dead Karait. "What is the use of that?" thought Rikki-tikki. "I have put an end to him"; and then Teddy's mother picked him up from the dust and hugged him, cryinj that he had saved Teddy from Death, and Teddy's father said that he brought luck, and Teddy looked on with big frightened eyes. Rikki-tikki did not understand all this but he was enjoying himself very much.

Teddy carried him off to bed, and wanted Rikki-tikki to sleep under his chin. Rikki-tikki did not bite or scratch – he was too well-bred – but as soon as Teddy was asleep he went off to walk round the house, and in the dark he ran up against Chuchundra, the muskrat, creeping round by the wall. Chuchundra is a frightened little beast. He creeps all night, trying to make up his mind to run into the middle of the room, but he never gets there. "Don't kill me," said Chuchundra, almost weeping. "Rikki-tikki, don't kill me."