Rikki-tikki put his paws one on each side of the egg, and his eyes were blood-red.  “What price for a snake’s egg?  For a young cobra?  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.  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!  Tricked!  Rikk-tck-tck!” chuckled Rikki-tikki.  “The boy is safe, and it was I—­I—­I that caught Nag by the hood last night in the bathroom.”  Then he began to jump up and down, all four feet together, his head close to the floor.  “He threw me to and fro, but he could not shake me off.  He was dead before the big man blew him in two.  I did it!  Rikki-tikki-tck-tck!  Come then, Nagaina.  Come and fight with me.  You shall not be a widow long.”

Nagaina saw that she had lost her chance of killing Teddy, and the egg lay between Rikki-tikki’s paws.  “Give me the egg, Rikki-tikki.  Give me the last of my eggs, and I will go away and never come back,” she said, lowering her hood.

“Yes, you will go away, and you will never come back.  For you will go to the rubbish heap with Nag.  Fight, widow!  The big man has gone for his gun!  Fight!”

Rikki-tikki was bounding all round Nagaina, keeping just out of reach of her stroke, his little eyes like hot coals.  Nagaina gathered herself together and flung out at him.  Rikki-tikki jumped up and backward.  Again and again and again she struck, and each time her head came with a whack on the matting of the veranda and she gathered herself together like a watch spring.  Then Rikki-tikki danced in a circle to get behind her, and Nagaina spun round to keep her head to his head, so that the rustle of her tail on the matting sounded like dry leaves blown along by the wind.

He had forgotten the egg.  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.

Rikki-tikki knew that he must catch her, or all the trouble would begin again.  She headed straight for the long grass by the thorn-bush, and as he was running Rikki-tikki heard Darzee still singing his foolish little song of triumph.  But Darzee’s wife was wiser.  She flew off her nest as Nagaina came along, and flapped her wings about Nagaina’s head.  If Darzee had helped they might have turned her, but Nagaina only lowered her hood and went on.  Still, the instant’s delay brought Rikki-tikki up to her, and as she plunged into the rat-hole where she and Nag used to live, his little white teeth were clenched on her tail, and he went down with her—­and very few mongooses, however wise and old they may be, care to follow a cobra into its hole.  It was dark in the hole; and Rikki-tikki never knew when it might open out and give Nagaina room to turn and strike at him.  He held on savagely, and stuck out his feet to act as brakes on the dark slope of the hot, moist earth.