The Jungle Book
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!”
Teddy carried him off to bed, and insisted on Rikki-tikki sleeping under
his chin. Rikki-tikki was too well bred to bite or scratch, but as soon
as Teddy was asleep he went off for his nightly walk round the house,
and in the dark he ran up against Chuchundra, the muskrat, creeping
around by the wall. Chuchundra is a broken-hearted little beast. He
whimpers and cheeps all the 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!”
“Do you think a snake-killer kills muskrats?” said Rikki-tikki
scornfully.
“Those who kill snakes get killed by snakes,” said Chuchundra, more
sorrowfully than ever. “And how am I to be sure that Nag won’t mistake
me for you some dark night?”
“There’s not the least danger,” said Rikki-tikki. “But Nag is in the
garden, and I know you don’t go there.”
“My cousin Chua, the rat, told me--” said Chuchundra, and then he
stopped.
“Told you what?”
“H’sh! Nag is everywhere, Rikki-tikki. You should have talked to Chua in
the garden.”
“I didn’t--so you must tell me. Quick, Chuchundra, or I’ll bite you!”
Chuchundra sat down and cried till the tears rolled off his whiskers.
“I am a very poor man,” he sobbed. “I never had spirit enough to run out
into the middle of the room. H’sh! I mustn’t tell you anything. Can’t
you hear, Rikki-tikki?”
Rikki-tikki listened. The house was as still as still, but he thought he
could just catch the faintest scratch-scratch in the world--a noise as
faint as that of a wasp walking on a window-pane--the dry scratch of a
snake’s scales on brick-work.
“That’s Nag or Nagaina,” he said to himself, “and he is crawling into
the bath-room sluice. You’re right, Chuchundra; I should have talked to
Chua.”
He stole off to Teddy’s bath-room, but there was nothing there, and then
to Teddy’s mother’s bathroom. At the bottom of the smooth plaster wall
there was a brick pulled out to make a sluice for the bath water, and as
Rikki-tikki stole in by the masonry curb where the bath is put, he heard
Nag and Nagaina whispering together outside in the moonlight.
“When the house is emptied of people,” said Nagaina to her husband, “he
will have to go away, and then the garden will be our own again. Go in
quietly, and remember that the big man who killed Karait is the first
one to bite. Then come out and tell me, and we will hunt for Rikki-tikki
together.”
“But are you sure that there is anything to be gained by killing the
people?” said Nag.
“Everything. When there were no people in the bungalow, did we have any
mongoose in the garden? So long as the bungalow is empty, we are king
and queen of the garden; and remember that as soon as our eggs in the
melon bed hatch (as they may tomorrow), our children will need room and
quiet.”
“I had not thought of that,” said Nag. “I will go, but there is no need
that we should hunt for Rikki-tikki afterward. I will kill the big man
and his wife, and the child if I can, and come away quietly. Then the
bungalow will be empty, and Rikki-tikki will go.”
Rikki-tikki tingled all over with rage and hatred at this, and then
Nag’s head came through the sluice, and his five feet of cold body
followed it. Angry as he was, Rikki-tikki was very frightened as he saw
the size of the big cobra. Nag coiled himself up, raised his head,
and looked into the bathroom in the dark, and Rikki could see his eyes
glitter.
“Now, if I kill him here, Nagaina will know; and if I fight him on
the open floor, the odds are in his favor. What am I to do?” said
Rikki-tikki-tavi.
Nag waved to and fro, and then Rikki-tikki heard him drinking from the
biggest water-jar that was used to fill the bath. “That is good,” said
the snake. “Now, when Karait was killed, the big man had a stick. He may
have that stick still, but when he comes in to bathe in the morning he
will not have a stick. I shall wait here till he comes. Nagaina--do you
hear me?--I shall wait here in the cool till daytime.”
There was no answer from outside, so Rikki-tikki knew Nagaina had gone
away. Nag coiled himself down, coil by coil, round the bulge at the
bottom of the water jar, and Rikki-tikki stayed still as death. After an
hour he began to move, muscle by muscle, toward the jar. Nag was asleep,
and Rikki-tikki looked at his big back, wondering which would be the
best place for a good hold. “If I don’t break his back at the first
jump,” said Rikki, “he can still fight. And if he fights--O Rikki!” He
looked at the thickness of the neck below the hood, but that was too
much for him; and a bite near the tail would only make Nag savage.
“It must be the head”’ he said at last; “the head above the hood. And,
when I am once there, I must not let go.”
Then he jumped. The head was lying a little clear of the water jar,
under the curve of it; and, as his teeth met, Rikki braced his back
against the bulge of the red earthenware to hold down the head. This
gave him just one second’s purchase, and he made the most of it. Then he
was battered to and fro as a rat is shaken by a dog--to and fro on the
floor, up and down, and around in great circles, but his eyes were red
and he held on as the body cart-whipped over the floor, upsetting the
tin dipper and the soap dish and the flesh brush, and banged against the
tin side of the bath. As he held he closed his jaws tighter and tighter,
for he made sure he would be banged to death, and, for the honor of his
family, he preferred to be found with his teeth locked. He was dizzy,
aching, and felt shaken to pieces when something went off like a
thunderclap just behind him. A hot wind knocked him senseless and red
fire singed his fur. The big man had been wakened by the noise, and had
fired both barrels of a shotgun into Nag just behind the hood.
Rikki-tikki held on with his eyes shut, for now he was quite sure he was
dead. But the head did not move, and the big man picked him up and said,
“It’s the mongoose again, Alice. The little chap has saved our lives
now.”
Then Teddy’s mother came in with a very white face, and saw what was
left of Nag, and Rikki-tikki dragged himself to Teddy’s bedroom and
spent half the rest of the night shaking himself tenderly to find out
whether he really was broken into forty pieces, as he fancied.
When morning came he was very stiff, but well pleased with his doings.
“Now I have Nagaina to settle with, and she will be worse than five
Nags, and there’s no knowing when the eggs she spoke of will hatch.
Goodness! I must go and see Darzee,” he said.
Without waiting for breakfast, Rikki-tikki ran to the thornbush where
Darzee was singing a song of triumph at the top of his voice. The news
of Nag’s death was all over the garden, for the sweeper had thrown the
body on the rubbish-heap.
“Oh, you stupid tuft of feathers!” said Rikki-tikki angrily. “Is this
the time to sing?”
“Nag is dead--is dead--is dead!” sang Darzee. “The valiant Rikki-tikki
caught him by the head and held fast. The big man brought the
bang-stick, and Nag fell in two pieces! He will never eat my babies
again.”
“All that’s true enough. But where’s Nagaina?” said Rikki-tikki, looking
carefully round him.
“Nagaina came to the bathroom sluice and called for Nag,” Darzee went
on, “and Nag came out on the end of a stick--the sweeper picked him up
on the end of a stick and threw him upon the rubbish heap. Let us sing
about the great, the red-eyed Rikki-tikki!” And Darzee filled his throat
and sang.
“If I could get up to your nest, I’d roll your babies out!” said
Rikki-tikki. “You don’t know when to do the right thing at the right
time. You’re safe enough in your nest there, but it’s war for me down
here. Stop singing a minute, Darzee.”
“For the great, the beautiful Rikki-tikki’s sake I 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 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