POETRY

The native born
the flowers
municipal
the coastwise lights
the English flag
England’s answer
the Overland mail
in spring time

‘Rikki-tikki-tavi’

At the hole where he went in
Red-Eye called to Wrinkle-Skin. 
Hear what little Red-Eye saith: 
‘Nag, come up and dance with death!’

Eye to eye and head to head,
(Keep the measure, Nag.)
This shall end when one is dead;
(At thy pleasure, Nag.)
Turn for turn and twist for twist—­
(Run and hide thee, Nag.)
Hah!  The hooded Death has missed!
(Woe betide thee, Nag!)

This is the story of the great war that Kikki-tikki-tavi fought single-handed, through the bath-rooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee cantonment.  Darzee, the tailor-bird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the musk-rat, who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but always creeps round by the wall, gave him advice; but Rikki-tikki did the real fighting.

He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but quite like a weasel in his head and habits.  His eyes and the end of his restless nose were pink; he could scratch himself anywhere he pleased, with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use; he could fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle-brush, and his war-cry, as he scuttled through the long grass, was:  ‘Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!’

One day, a high summer flood washed him out of the burrow where he lived with his father and mother, and carried him, kicking and clucking, down a roadside ditch.  He found a little wisp of grass floating there, and clung to it till he lost his senses.  When he revived, he was lying in the hot sun on the middle of a garden path, very draggled indeed, and a small boy was saying:  ’Here’s a dead mongoose.  Let’s have a funeral.’

‘No,’ said his mother; ’let’s take him in and dry him.  Perhaps he isn’t really dead.’

They took him into the house, and a big man picked him up between his finger and thumb, and said he was not dead but half choked; so they wrapped him in cotton-wool, and warmed him and he opened his eyes and sneezed.

‘Now,’ said the big man (he was an Englishman who had just moved into the bungalow); ‘don’t frighten him and we’ll see what he’ll do.’

It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity.  The motto of all the mongoose family is ‘Run and find out’; and Rikki-tikki was a true mongoose.  He looked at the cotton-wool, decided that it was not good to eat, ran all round the table, sat up and put his fur in order, scratched himself, and jumped on the small boy’s shoulder.