Darzee and his wife only cowered down in the nest without answering,for from the thick grass at the foot of the bush there came a low hiss--a horrid cold sound that made Rikki-tikki jump back two clear feet. Then inch by inch out of the grass rose up the head and spread 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 clear of the ground, he stayed balancing to and fro exactly as a dandelion tuft balances in the wind, and he looked at Rikki-tikki with the wicked snake’s eyes that never change their expression, whatever the snake may be thinking of.
“Who is Nag?” said he. “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 more than ever,and Rikki-tikki saw the spectacle-mark on the back of it that looks exactly like the eye part of a hook-and-eye fastening. He was afraid for the minute, but it is impossible for a mongoose to stay frightened for any length of time, and though Rikki-tikki had never met a live cobra before, his mother had fed him on dead ones, and he knew that all 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 you to eat fledglings out of a nest?”
Nag was thinking to himself,and watching the least 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 knew better than to waste time in staring.He jumped up in the air as high as he could go,and just under him whizzed by the head of Nagaina,Nag’s wicked wife. She had crept up behind him as he was talking,to make an end of him.He heard her savage hiss as the stroke missed.He came down almost across her back,and if he had been an old mongoose he would have known that then was the time to break her back with one bite; but he was afraid of the terrible lashing return stroke of the cobra. He bit, indeed, but did not bite long enough, and he jumped clear of the whisking tail, leaving Nagaina torn and angry.
“Wicked, wicked Darzee!” said Nag, lashing up as high as he could reach toward the nest in the thorn-bush. But Darzee had built it out of reach of snakes, and it only swayed to and 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!”