It was Darzee, the tailor-bird, and his wife.  They had made a beautiful nest by pulling two big leaves together and stitching them up the edges with fibres, and had filled the hollow with cotton and downy fluff.  The nest swayed to and fro, as they sat on the rim and cried.

‘What is the matter?’ asked Rikki-tikki.

‘We are very miserable,’ 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 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; and 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.