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As Rikki-tikki went up the path, he heard his 'attention' notes like a tiny dinner-gong; and then the steady 'Ding-dong-lock! 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. 'He saved our lives and Teddy's life, she said to her husband.
"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?
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!
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!
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.
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!"
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!
"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.
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.
'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.
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