This is a story about a great war that Rikki-Tikki-Tavi fought alone in the bathroom of a large house in the village of Sigauli.
Darzi, the tailor bird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the musky rat (muskrat, found mainly in North America. - Ed.) - the one that never runs out into the middle of the room, but always sneaks up against the very wall - gave him advice . But he really fought alone.
Rikki-Tiki-Tavi was a mongoose (a small predatory animal with an elongated flexible body and short legs, found in tropical countries. - Ed.). His tail and fur were like those of a small cat, and his head and all the habits were like those of a weasel. His eyes were pink, and the tip of his restless nose was also pink. Ricky could scratch himself wherever he pleased, no matter what paw: front or back. And he knew how to fluff his tail so that the tail looked like a round long brush. And his battle cry as he raced through the tall grasses was rikki-tikki-tikki-tikki-chk!
He lived with his father and mother in a narrow hollow. But one summer there was a flood, and the water carried him along the roadside ditch. He kicked and thrashed as best he could. Finally he managed to grab hold of a floating tuft of grass, and so he held on until he lost consciousness. He woke up in the hot sun in the garden, in the middle of the path, tormented and dirty, and at that time some boy said:
- Dead mongoose! Let's have a funeral!
“No,” said the boy’s mother, “let’s take him and dry him.” Maybe he's still alive.
They carried him into the house, and some big man took him with two fingers and said that he was not dead at all, but only drowned in the water. Then they wrapped him in cotton wool and began to warm him by the fire. He opened his eyes and sneezed.
"Now," said the Big Man, "don't scare him, and we'll see what he does."
There is nothing more difficult in the world than to frighten a mongoose, because he is burning with curiosity from nose to tail. “Run Find out and Smell” - is inscribed on the mongoose family crest, and Rikki-Tikki was a purebred mongoose, he peered into the cotton wool, realized that it was not fit for food, ran around the table, sat on his hind legs, put his fur in order and jumped on the boy's shoulder.
"Don't be afraid, Teddy," said the Big Man. “He wants to be friends with you.
- Hey, he's tickling my neck! Teddy screamed.
Rikki-tikki looked behind his collar, sniffed his ear and, going down to the floor, began to rub his nose.
- These are miracles! said Teddin's mother. - And it's called a wild animal! It's true, he's so tame because we've been kind to him.
“Mongooses are like that,” her husband said. - If Teddy does not pick him up from the floor by the tail and does not take it into his head to put him in a cage, he will settle with us and will run around the house ... Let's give him something to eat.
He was given a small piece of raw meat. He really liked meat. After breakfast, he immediately ran to the veranda, sat down in the sun and fluffed out his fur to dry it to the very roots. And immediately he felt better.
“There are many things in this house that I must scout out as soon as possible. My parents had never explored so much in their entire lives. I'll stay here and explore everything as it is."
All that day he did nothing but roam the house. He almost drowned in the bath, he stuck his nose in the ink and immediately after that he burned his nose on the cigar that the Big Man was smoking because he climbed up to Big Man kneel down to see how they write with pen on paper. In the evening he ran into Teddin's bedroom to see how the kerosene lamps were lit. And when Teddy went to bed, Rikki-tikki crouched down beside him, but turned out to be a restless neighbor, because at every rustle he jumped up and alerted and ran to find out what was the matter. Father and mother went before going to bed to check on their sleeping son and saw that Rikki-tikki was not sleeping, but was sitting on his pillow.
"I don't like it," said Teddin's mother. What if he bites the child?
"Don't be afraid," said the father. - This little animal will protect him better than any dog. If, for example, a snake crawls in ...
But Teddin's mother did not want to think about such horrors. By morning breakfast, Ricky rode onto the veranda astride Teddin's shoulder. He was given a banana and a piece of egg. He was on everyone's knees, because a good mongoose never loses hope of becoming a pet mongoose. Each of them from childhood dreams that he will live in a human house and run from room to room.
After breakfast, Rikki-tikki ran out into the garden to see if there was anything remarkable there. The garden was large, only half cleared. Huge roses grew in it - each bush was like an arbor - and bamboo groves, and orange trees, and lemon trees, and dense thickets of tall grass. Rikki-tikki even licked his lips.
- A good place to hunt! - he said.
And as soon as he thought about hunting, his tail swelled up like a round brush. He quickly ran around the whole neighborhood, sniffed here, sniffed there, and suddenly someone's sad voices reached him from the thorn bush. There, in the thorn bush, lived Darzi, the tailor bird, and his wife. They had a beautiful nest: they sewed it from two huge leaves with thin fibrous twigs and stuffed it with soft down and cotton. The nest swayed in all directions, and they sat on the edge and cried loudly.
- What's happened? Rikki-tikki asked.
- A big misfortune! Darzi replied. “One of our chicks fell out of the nest yesterday and Nag swallowed it.
“Hm,” said Rikki-tikki, “it’s very sad… But I’ve been here recently… I’m not from here… Who is Nag?”
Darzi and his wife darted into the nest and did not answer, because from the thick grass, from under the bush, a low hiss was heard - a terrible, cold sound that made Rikki-tikki jump back a full two feet. Then from the grass, higher and higher, an inch by inch, the head of Nag, a huge black cobra (poisonous spectacled snake; behind, slightly below the head, it has a pattern resembling glasses. - Ed.), began to rise - and there was this Nag of five feet in length from head to tail.
When a third of his body rose above the ground, he stopped and began to sway like a dandelion in the wind, and looked at Rikki-tikki with his evil snake eyes, which always remain the same, no matter what Nag thinks about.
“Are you asking who Nag is?” Look at me and shiver! Because Nag is me...
And he inflated his hood (when the cobra is angry, it puffs up its neck so that it looks like a hood. - Ed.), And Rikki-tikki saw a spectacle mark on the hood, exactly like a steel loop from a steel hook.
Ricky was scared - for a minute. For more than one minute, mongooses are generally not afraid of anyone, and although Rikki-Tikki had never seen a live cobra, since his mother fed him dead ones, he well understood that mongooses exist in the world to fight snakes, defeat them and eat. This was known to the Nagu, and therefore there was fear in the depths of his cold heart.
- So what! - said Rikki-tikki, and his tail began to swell again. “Do you think that if you have a pattern on your back, then you have the right to swallow chicks that fall out of the nest?”
Nag was thinking about something else at that time and vigilantly peered to see if the grass was stirring behind Ricky's back. He knew that if mongooses appeared in the garden, then both he and the whole snake family would soon come to an end. But now he needed to lull the attention of the enemy. So he bent his head a little, and tilting it to one side, he said:
- Let's talk. You eat bird eggs, don't you? Why don't I eat birds?
- Behind! Behind! Look around! Darzi sang at that time.
But Rikki-tikki understood well that there was no time to stare. He jumped as high as possible and below him saw the hissing head of Nagaina, the evil wife of Naga. She crept up behind while Nag was talking to him and wanted to finish him off. She hissed because Ricky had eluded her. Ricky jumped up and fell right on her back, and if he were older, he would know that now is the time to bite her back with his teeth: one bite - and you're done! But he was afraid that she would whip him with her terrible tail. However, he bit her, but not as hard as he should have, and immediately bounced off the coils of the tail, leaving the snake furious and injured.
“Ugly, ugly Darzy!” - said Nag and stretched himself up as far as he could to reach the nest hanging on a thorn bush.
But Darzi deliberately built his nest so high that the snakes could not reach him, and the nest only swayed on the branch.
Rikki-tikki felt that his eyes were getting redder and hotter, and when the mongoose's eyes turn red, it means that he is very angry. He sat on his tail and on his hind legs, like a little kangaroo, and, looking in all directions, chattered with rage. But there was no one to fight with: Nag and Nagaina darted into the grass and disappeared. When a snake happens to miss, it does not say a single word or show what it is going to do. Rikki-tikki didn't even try to chase the enemies, as he wasn't sure if he could handle both at once. He trotted towards the house, sat down on the sandy path, and thought deeply. Yes, and there was something.
When you happen to read old books about various animals, you will read that a mongoose stung by a snake immediately runs away and eats some kind of herb that seems to cure him of the bite. This is not true. The victory of the mongoose over the cobra is in the speed of his eyes and paws. A cobra has a bite, a mongoose has a jump.
And since no eye can follow the movement of the snake's head when it wants to sting, this jump of the mongoose is more wonderful than any magical grass.
Rikki-tikki was well aware that he was still young and inexperienced. That was why he was so glad to think that he had contrived to dodge the attack from behind. He felt great respect for himself, and when Teddy ran up to him along the garden path, he was not averse to letting the boy pet him. But just at the moment when Teddy bent over him, something flickered, writhing in the dust, and a thin voice said: “Watch out! I am death!" It was Karaite, a dusty gray snake that loves to wallow in the sand. Her sting is as poisonous as that of a cobra, but because she is small, no one notices her, and thus she brings people even more harm.
Rikki-tikki's eyes turned red again, and he, dancing, ran up to Karait with that special, uneven gait he had inherited from his forefathers. The gait is funny, but very comfortable, because it gives you the opportunity to make a jump at any angle. And when you're dealing with snakes, that's the most important thing. The duel with Karaite was even more dangerous for Ricky than the battle with Nag, because Karaite is such a small, nimble and agile snake that if Ricky does not dig into her from behind with his teeth just below the head, Karaite will certainly sting him either in the eye or in lip.
However, Ricky didn't know that. His eyes were completely reddened, he no longer thought about anything - he walked and swayed back and forth, looking for where it would be better for him to sink his teeth. Karaite ran into him. Ricky jumped sideways and wanted to bite her, but the damned dusty gray head appeared at the very back of his head, and in order to throw her off his back, he had to roll over in the air. She did not lag behind and rushed at his heels.
Teddy turned to the house and shouted:
“Come and see: our mongoose is killing a snake!”
And Rikki-tikki heard Teddin's mother scream. The boy's father ran out with a stick, but just at that time Karait made an unsuccessful dash - farther than necessary - and Rikki-tikki jumped on her and dug his teeth a little below her head, and then rolled away. Karaite immediately stopped moving, and Rikki-tikki was already preparing to eat her, starting with the tail (such is the dinner custom among mongooses), when he remembered that mongooses get heavier from hearty food and that if he wants to maintain his agility and strength, he must remain thin . He walked away and began to tumble in the dust under the castor bean bush, while Teddin's father attacked the dead woman with a stick.
“What is it for?” thought Ricky. “Because I already finished her off.”
And then Teddy's mother ran up to Rikki-tikki, picked him up right out of the dust and began to hug him tightly, shouting that he had saved her son from death, and Teddy made big eyes, and there was fear in his eyes. Ricky liked the commotion, but why it happened, of course, he could not understand. Why do they caress him so much? After all, for him to fight with snakes is the same as for Teddy somersaults in the dust - a pleasure.
When they sat down to dinner, Rikki-tikki, walking along the tablecloth among glasses and glasses, could stuff his belly three times with the most delicious delicacies, but he remembered Naga and Nagaina, and although he was very pleased that Teddin's mother was squeezing and stroking him, and that Teddy puts him on his shoulder, but his eyes were constantly reddening, and he let out his war cry: ricky-tikki-tikki-tikki-chk!
Teddy took him to his bed. The boy certainly wanted Ricky to sleep under his chin, on his chest. Ricky was a well-bred mongoose and could not bite or scratch him, but as soon as Teddy fell asleep, he got out of bed and went to travel around the house.
In the darkness, he stumbled upon the musky rat Chuchundra, who was sneaking closer to the wall.
Chuchundra has a broken heart. She's whining and whining all night and wants to muster up the courage to run out into the middle of the room. But she never has the courage.
Don't kill me, Rikki-tikki! she screamed and almost cried.
- Who kills a snake, will he bother with some musky rat! Rikki-tikki replied contemptuously.
- He who kills a snake from a snake will perish! Chuchundra said even sadder. “And who knows if Nag will kill me by mistake? He thinks I am you...
Well, he never thinks about it! Rikki-tikki said. “Besides, he’s in the garden, and you never go there.
- My cousin, the rat Chua, told me ... - Chuchundra began and fell silent.
- What did she say?
– Shh… Nag is omnipresent – he is everywhere. You should have talked to my sister in the garden yourself.
But I didn't see her. Speak now! Hurry up, Chuchundra, otherwise I'll bite you.
Chuchundra sat down on her haunches and began to cry. She wept for a long time, tears flowing down her mustache.
- I'm so unhappy! she sobbed. “I never had the heart to run out into the middle of the room. Shh! But can't you hear, Rikki-tikki? It's better for me not to say anything.
Rikki-tikki listened. There was silence in the house, but it seemed to him that he could barely hear a quiet, barely audible shh, as if a wasp had passed over the glass. It was the rustle of snake scales on the brick floor.
“Either Nag, or Nagini! he decided. “Some of them are crawling down the gutter into the bathroom…”
- That's right, Chuchundra. Too bad I didn't talk to your Chua.
He crept into Teddin's washroom, but there was no one there. From there he made his way to Teddy's mother's washroom. There, in the smooth plastered wall, near the floor, a brick for the gutter was taken out, and as Ricky made his way along the stone edge of the recess into which the bath was inserted, he heard Nag and Nagini whispering behind the wall, in the moonlight.
“If there are no people in the house,” Nagaina told her husband, “he will also leave from there, and the garden will be ours again.” Go, don't worry and remember that you must first sting the Big Man who killed Karaite. Then come back to me and we'll finish off Rikki-tikki together.
“But would it be of any use to us if we killed them?”
- Still would! Huge. When the house was empty, were there mongooses here? While no one lives in the house, you and I are the kings of the whole garden: you are the king, I am the queen. Do not forget: when our children hatch from eggs on the melon bed (and this may happen tomorrow), they will need peace and comfort.
"I didn't think of that," Nag said. - Ok, I'm going. But it doesn't seem to make any sense to challenge Rikki-tikki to a fight. I will kill the Big Man and his wife, and also, if I succeed, his son, and crawl away on the sly. Then the house will be empty, and Rikki-tikki himself will leave here.
Rikki-tikki was trembling all over with indignation and rage.
Nag's head poked through the hole, followed by five feet of his cold torso. Rikki-tikki, although he was furious, was still horrified when he saw how huge this cobra was. Nag curled up into a ring, raised his head and began to peer into the darkness of the bathroom. Rikki-tikki could see his eyes twinkle.
“If I kill him now,” thought Rikki-tikki, “Nagini will immediately know about it. Fighting in an open place is very unprofitable for me: Nag can defeat me. What should I do?"
Nag swayed right and left, and then Rikki-tikki heard him drinking water from a large jug that served to fill the bath.
- Wonderful! - said Nag, quenching his thirst. “The Big Man had a stick when he ran out to kill Karaite. Perhaps this stick is with him even now. But when he comes here this morning to wash himself, he will, of course, be without a stick... Nagaina, do you hear me?... I'll wait for him here, in the chill, until dawn...
No one answered Nagu, and Rikki-Tikki realized that Nagaina had left. Nag wrapped himself around a large jug near the floor and fell asleep. And Rikki-tikki stood silent as death. An hour later, he began to move toward the jug, muscle by muscle. Ricky peered into Naga's broad back and thought about where to sink his teeth.
“If I don’t bite his neck in the first moment, he will still have the strength to fight me, and if he fights, oh Ricky!”
He looked at how thick Nag's neck was - no, he could not cope with such a neck. And to bite somewhere closer to the tail - only provoke the enemy.
“The head remains! he decided. - Head above the hood. And if you cling to it, then don’t let it go for anything. ”
He made the jump. The head of the snake lay slightly on the fly away; having bitten through it with his teeth, Rikki-tikki could rest his back against the ledge of an earthen jar and prevent his head from rising from the ground. In this way, he won only a second, but he made excellent use of this second. And then he was picked up and clattered to the ground, and began to shake in all directions, like a dog shakes a rat, and up and down, and in large circles, but his eyes were red, and he did not leave the snake when she thrashed him on the floor , throwing tin ladles, soap dishes, brushes in different directions, and beat him against the edges of a metal bath.
He clenched his jaw tighter and tighter, because although he thought that his death had come, he decided to meet her without opening his teeth. This was required by the honor of his family.
He was dizzy, nauseous, and felt as if he had been smashed to pieces. Suddenly, behind him, it was as if thunder struck, and a hot whirlwind rushed at him and knocked him down, and red fire seared his fur. This Big Man, awakened by the noise, came running with a hunting rifle, fired from both barrels at once and hit Nagu in the place where his hood ends. Rikki-tikki lay with his teeth clenched, and his eyes were closed, as he considered himself dead.
But the snake head no longer moved. The Big Man lifted Ricky off the ground and said:
– Look, our mongoose again. That night, Alice, he saved us from death - both you and me.
Then Teddin's mother came in with a very white face and saw what was left of Naga. And Rikki-tikki somehow dragged himself to Teddin's bedroom and all night did nothing but shake himself, as if wanting to check whether it was true that his body was broken into forty pieces, or it only seemed to him so in battle.
When morning came, he seemed to be frozen all over, but he was very pleased with his exploits.
“Now I have to finish off Nagaina, and this is more difficult than dealing with a dozen Nagas ... And then there are these eggs that she was talking about. I don't even know when they'll hatch into baby serpents... Damn it! I'll go and talk to Darzi."
Without waiting for breakfast, Rikki-tikki rushed with all his might to the thorn bush. Darzi sat in the nest and sang a joyful victory song with all his might. The whole garden already knew about Nag's death because the janitor threw his body into the dump.
- Oh, you stupid bunch of feathers! Rikki-tikki said angrily. Is now the time for songs?
“Nag is dead, dead, dead!” Darzi spluttered. - The brave Rikki-tikki dug his teeth into him! And the Big Man brought a stick that makes bam, and broke the Naga in two, two, two! Never again will Nagu devour my children!
"It's all true," said Rikki-tikki. - But where is Nagaina? And he looked around carefully.
And Darzi continued to pour:
- Nagini came to the drainpipe,
And Naga Nagaina called to herself,
But the watchman took Nag on a stick
And threw Naga in the landfill.
Glory, glory, great
Red-eyed hero Rikki-tikki! ..
And Darzi repeated his victory song again.
- If I could get to your nest, I would throw out all the chicks from there! shouted Rikki-tikki. “Or don’t you know that everything has its time?” It’s good for you to sing upstairs, but I don’t have time for songs down here: I need to go to war again! Stop singing for a minute.
- Well, I'm ready to shut up for you - for the hero, for the beautiful Ricky! Whatever the Vicious Naga's Conqueror wants?
- For the third time I ask you: where is Nagaina?
- Above the garbage heap, she is at the stable, she is crying about Naga ... Great white-toothed Ricky! ..
Leave my white teeth alone! Do you know where she hid the eggs?
- At the very edge, on a melon ridge, under a fence, where the sun is all day until sunset ... Many weeks have passed since she buried these eggs ...
“And you didn’t even think to tell me about it!” So under the fence, at the very edge?
“Rikki-tikki won’t go and swallow those eggs!”
- No, do not swallow, but ... Darzee, if you have even a drop of mind left, fly right now to the stable and pretend that your wing is broken, and let Nagini chase you to this bush, understand? I have to get to the melon patch, and if I go there now, she'll notice.
Darzi had a bird's mind, his tiny head never contained more than one thought at once. And since he knew that the children of Nagaina, like his chicks, are hatched from eggs, he thought that it was not entirely noble to exterminate them. But his wife was smarter. She knew that every egg of a cobra is the same cobra, and therefore she immediately flew out of the nest, and left Darzi at home: let her warm the babies and bawl her songs about the death of Naga. Darzi was in many ways like any other man.
Arriving at the garbage heap, she began to fidget a few steps from Nagini and at the same time shouted loudly:
- Oh, my wing is broken! The boy who lives in the house threw a stone at me and broke my wing!
And she flapped her wings even more desperately. Nagini raised her head and hissed:
“Did you let Rikki-tikki know that I wanted to sting him?” You chose a bad place to limp!
And she glided over the dusty ground to Darzi's wife.
- The boy interrupted him with a stone! Darzi's wife continued to shout.
“Okay, maybe you'll be pleased to know that when you're dead, I'll deal with this boy in my own way. Today, since dawn, my husband has been lying on this garbage heap, but even before sunset, the boy living in the house will also lie very still ... But where are you going? Are you thinking of running away? You won't leave me anyway. Stupid, look at me!
But Darzi's wife knew very well that she should not do this, because as soon as any bird looked into the eyes of a snake, tetanus attacked the bird with fright and she could not move. Darzi's wife rushed away, squeaking plaintively and flapping her wings helplessly. She never fluttered above the ground, and Nagini rushed after her faster and faster.
Rikki-tikki heard them running from the stable along the garden path, and he rushed to the melon patch, to the edge that was right next to the fence. There, in the swollen earth that covers the melons, he found twenty-five snake eggs, very skillfully hidden, each as large as a bantam egg (a chicken of a small breed. - Ed.), only instead of a shell they are covered with a whitish peel.
One more day and it would be too late! - said Rikki-tikki, as he saw that inside the peel lay, curled up, tiny cobras.
He knew that from the minute they hatched from the egg, each could kill a man and a mongoose. He began quickly, quickly biting the tops of the eggs, grabbing the heads of the serpents, and at the same time did not forget to dig up the ridge here and there, so as not to let any egg go unnoticed.
There were only three eggs left, and Rikki-tikki was already giggling with joy when Darzi's wife shouted to him:
- Rikki-tikki, I lured Nagini to the house, and Nagini crawled onto the veranda! Oh, hurry, hurry! She's plotting murder!
Rikki-tikki bit into two more eggs, and the third took in his teeth and rushed to the veranda.
Teddy and his mother and father were sitting on the veranda at breakfast. But Rikki-tikki noticed that they didn't eat anything. They sat as still as stone, and their faces were white. And on the mat near Teddy's chair, Nagini writhed in rings. She crawled so close that she could sting Teddy's bare leg at any time. Swinging in different directions, she sang a victory song.
“Son of the Big Man who killed the Naga,” she hissed, “wait a little, sit still and don't move. I'm not ready yet. And all three of you sit quietly. If you move, I will sting him. If you don't move, I'll sting too. O foolish people who killed the Naga.
Teddy fixed his eyes on his father, and his father could only whisper:
“Sit down and don't move, Teddy. Sit down and don't move! Then Rikki-tikki ran up and shouted:
- Turn to me, Nagini, turn and let's fight!
- All in good time! she answered without looking at Rikki-tikki. - I'll get even with you later. In the meantime, look at your dear friends. How quiet they are and what white faces they have. They were frightened, they dare not move. And if you take one step, I'll sting.
“Look at your kites,” said Rikki-tikki, “there, by the fence, on the melon ridge.” Go and see what has become of them.
The snake looked sideways and saw an egg on the veranda.
- ABOUT! Give it to me! she screamed.
Rikki-tikki put an egg between his front paws, and his eyes turned red as blood.
“And what is the ransom for the snake egg?” For a little cobra? For the cobra princess? For the very, very last of the kind? The rest are already being devoured by ants on the melon bed.
Nagini turned to Rikki-tikki. The egg made her forget everything, and Rikki-tikki saw Teddin's father reach out with a big hand, grab Teddy by the shoulder and drag him across the teacup-lined table to a place where the snake couldn't reach him.
- Deceived! Deceived! Deceived! Rikk-chk-chk! Rikki-tikki teased her. - The boy remained intact - and I, I, I grabbed your Naga by the scruff tonight ... there, in the bathroom ... yes!
Then he began to jump up and down with all four paws at once, folding them into one bundle and pressing his head to the floor.
“Nag swung me in all directions, but he couldn’t shake me off!” He was already lifeless when the Big Man split him in two with a stick. I killed him, Rikki-tikki-chk-chk! Come out, Nagini! Come out and fight me. You won't be a widow for long!
Nagini saw that she could no longer kill Teddy, and Rikki-Tikki had an egg between her paws.
“Give me the egg, Rikki-tikki!” Give me my last egg and I'll go and never come back,” she said, lowering her hood.
- Yes, you will leave and never return, Nagini, because you will soon lie next to your Nag on a garbage heap. Rather fight with me! Big Man has already gone for the gun. Fight with me, Nagini!
Rikki-tikki hovered around Nagini at such a distance that she could not touch him, and his small eyes were like hot coals.
Nagini curled up into a ball and with all her strength flew at him. And he jumped up and back. Again, and again, and again her attacks were repeated, and each time her head slammed against the mat, and she coiled again like a clock spring. Rikki-tikki danced in a circle, wanting to go around her from behind, but Nagini turned every time to meet him face to face, and that's why her tail rustled on the mat, like dry leaves driven by the wind.
He forgot about the egg. It still lay on the veranda, and Nagini crept closer and closer to him. And finally, when Ricky stopped to catch his breath, she picked up the egg and slid down the steps of the porch, rushing like an arrow along the path. Rikki-tikki - behind her. When a cobra flees from death, it makes such twists as a whip, which is used to whip a horse's neck.
Rikki-tikki knew that he had to catch up with her, otherwise all the troubles would start again. She rushed to the thorn bush to flicker into the thick grass, and Rikki-tikki, running, heard that Darzee was still singing his stupid song of victory. But Darzi's wife was smarter than him. She flew out of the nest and flapped her wings over Nagini's head. If Darzi had flown to her aid, they might have forced the cobra to swerve. Now Nagini only slightly lowered her hood and continued to crawl straight ahead. But this slight hitch brought Rikki-tikki closer to her. When she darted into the hole where she and Nag lived, Ricky's white teeth grabbed her tail, and Ricky squeezed in after her, and, really, not every mongoose, even the smartest and oldest, will decide to follow the cobra into the hole. It was dark in the hole, and Rikki-tikki could not guess where it would expand so much that Nagini would turn around and sting him. Therefore, he fiercely dug into her tail and, acting with his paws as brakes, with all his might rested on the sloping, wet, warm earth.
Soon the grass stopped swaying at the entrance to the hole, and Darzi said:
- Missing Rikki-tikki! We must sing his funeral song. Fearless Rikki-tikki died. Nagini will kill him in his dungeon, there is no doubt about that.
And he sang a very sad song, which he composed at the same moment, but as soon as he reached the saddest place, the grass above the hole stirred again, and from there, covered with mud, climbed out, licking his mustache, Rikki-tikki. Darzi cried out softly and stopped his song.
Rikki-tikki shook off the dust and sneezed.
“It's all over,” he said. “The widow will never come out of there again.
And the red ants that live between the stalks of grass immediately began to descend into the hole one after another to find out if he was telling the truth.
Rikki-tikki curled up in a ball and immediately, in the grass, without leaving his place, fell asleep - and slept, and slept, and slept until evening, because his work was not easy that day.
And when he awoke from his sleep, he said:
“Now I will go home. You, Darzi, inform the blacksmith, and he will inform the whole garden that Nagini has already died.
The blacksmith is a bird. The sounds it makes are just like hammer blows on a copper basin. This is because she serves as herald in every Indian garden and brings news to anyone who wishes to listen to her.
As he walked along the garden path, Rikki-tikki heard her first trill, like the sound of a tiny dinner gong. It meant: "Shut up and listen!" And then loudly and firmly:
“Ding dong tok!” Nag is dead! Dong! Nagini is dead! Ding dong tok!
And immediately all the birds in the garden sang and all the frogs croaked, because Nag and Nagaina ate both birds and frogs.
When Ricky approached the house, Teddy and Teddin's mother (she was still very pale) and Teddin's father rushed to meet him and almost cried. This time he ate well, and when it was time for bed he sat on Teddy's shoulder and went to bed with the boy. There his mother saw Teddin, having come to visit her son late in the evening.
“This is our savior,” she said to her husband. “Just think: he saved Teddy and you and me.
Rikki-tikki immediately woke up and even jumped, because mongoose sleep is very sensitive.
- Oh, it's you! - he said. “What else do you need to worry about: not a single cobra is left alive, and if they were, I’m here.
Rikki-tikki had the right to be proud of himself. But still he did not put on too much air and, like a true mongoose, guarded this garden with a tooth, and a claw, and a leap, and a swoop, so that not a single cobra dared to poke his head here through the fence.
PRAISE SONG,
which the little tailor Darzi sang to the glory of Rikki-tikki-tavi
- I live a double life:
I sing songs in the sky
Here on earth I am a tailor -
I sew a house of leaves.
Here on earth, in heaven above earth
I twist, and sew, and sing!
Rejoice, tender mother:
In the battle, the killer is killed.
Sing over the chicks again:
The enemy is buried in the grave.
An evil bloodsucker lurking in roses
Caught, killed and buried!
Who is he who delivered us?
Reveal his name to me.
Ricky - sparkling eye
Tikki is a fearless hero.
Rik-tikki-tikki, our great hero,
Our fire-eyed hero!
Tail in front of the hero scatter.
Raise the trill to heaven.
Sing to him, sing, nightingale!
No, I'll sing to him myself.
I sing glory to the great Ricky,
His bold claws, his white fangs
And fiery red eyes!
(The song ends here because Rikki-tikki-tavi prevented the singer from continuing.)
This is a story about a great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought alone in the bathroom of a spacious bungalow in the Segovli military settlement. Darcy, the tailor bird, helped him; Chuchundra, the musky rat, who never goes into the middle of the room and always creeps along the walls, gave him advice; however, it was Rikki-tikki alone who really fought.
He was a mongoose (Mangus is the local name for a mongoose, or ichneumon. - Approx. Per.), He looked like a cat in fur and tail, but his head and disposition resembled a weasel. His eyes and the tip of his restless nose were pink; with any paw, front or back, he could scratch himself anywhere, anywhere; could fluff out its tail, making it look like a lamp-glass brush, and as it raced through the tall grass, its battle cry was: rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk.
One day in the middle of summer, a downpour washed him out of the hole in which he lived with his father and mother, and carried the floundering and clattering animal into a roadside ditch. Rikki-tikki saw a floating lump of grass there, grabbed it with all his might and finally lost consciousness. When the animal woke up, he was lying, very wet, in the middle of the garden path under the sultry rays of the sun; a little boy stood over him and said:
- Here's a dead mongoose. Let's arrange a funeral for him.
"No," the boy's mother replied. - We'll take the animal to our house and dry it. Maybe he's still alive.
They carried him into the house; Very A tall man took Rikki-tikki with two fingers and said that the animal did not die, but only almost suffocated; Rikki-tikki was wrapped in cotton wool and kept warm; he opened his eyes and sneezed.
“Now,” said the tall man (he was an Englishman who had just moved into the bungalow), “don't frighten him and let's see what he will do.”
The hardest thing in the world to scare a mongoose, because this animal, from its nose to its tail, is eaten by curiosity. The motto of every 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 for eating, ran around the table, sat down and tidied up his fur, scratched himself and jumped on the boy's shoulder.
"Don't be afraid, Teddy," said the boy's father. That's how he gets to know you.
- Oh, ticklish; he got under his chin.
Rikki-tikki looked into the space between Teddy's collar and his neck, sniffed his ear, finally slid to the floor, sat up and scratched his nose.
"Good God," said Teddy's mother, "and it's a wild creature!" I think he's so tame because we've been kind to him.
“All mongooses are like that,” her husband answered her. - If Teddy does not pull his tail, does not put him in a cage, he will run out of the house all day, then come back. Let's feed him something.
The animal was given a piece of raw meat. Rikki-tikki liked it; after eating, the mongoose ran out onto the veranda, sat in the sun and raised his hair to dry it to the very roots. And I felt better.
“I will soon learn much more in this house,” he said to himself, “than all my relatives could learn in a lifetime. Of course, I'll stay here and look into everything.
He ran around the house all day; almost drowned in the bathtub; stuck his nose into the inkwell on the desk; burned him on the end of an Englishman's cigar when he climbed into his lap to watch people write. When evening came, the mongoose ran into Teddy's nursery to see the kerosene lamps being lit; when Teddy got into bed, Rikki-tikki climbed in after him and turned out to be a restless comrade: he jumped up every minute, listened to every rustle and went to find out what was the matter. Teddy's father and mother came to the nursery to look at their boy; Rikki-tikki didn't sleep; he was sitting on a cushion.
“I don't like that,” said the boy's mother, “he might bite Teddy.
“Mongus would do nothing of the sort,” her husband protested. “Teddy is safer around this little animal than he would be under the guard of a negro dog. If a snake crawled into the nursery now ...
But Teddy's mother didn't want to think about such terrible things.
Early in the morning, Rikki-tikki appeared on the veranda for the first breakfast, sitting on Teddy's shoulder. He was given a banana and a piece of boiled egg. He sat in turn on everyone's lap, because every well-bred mongoose hopes, in time, to become a pet and run around all the rooms; and Rikki-Tikki's mother (she lived in the general's house at Segowli) diligently explained to him how he should act when meeting with whites.
After breakfast, Rikki-tikki went out into the garden to have a good look at it. It was a large, only half-cultivated garden, with rose bushes of Maréchal Niel, as high as they reach only in greenhouses, with lemon and orange trees, with thickets of bamboo and thick thickets of tall grass. Rikki-tikki licked his lips.
“What an excellent hunting ground,” he said; with pleasure his tail fluffed out like a brush for lamp-glasses, and he began to dart back and forth in the garden, sniffing here and there, and, at last, among the branches of the thorn bush, he heard very sad voices.
There sat Darcy, the tailor bird, and his wife. By joining two sheets and sewing together their edges with sheet fibers, they filled the empty space between them with cotton and down, thus arranging a beautiful nest. The nest swayed; birds sat on its edge and cried.
- What's the matter? Rikki-tikki asked.
“We are very unhappy,” said Darcy. “One of our chicks fell out of the nest yesterday and Nag ate it.
- Hm, - said Rikki-tikki, - it's very sad, but I'm here recently. Who is Nag?
Darcy and his wife, instead of answering, hid in their nest, because a low hissing came from under the bush - a terrible cold sound that made Rikki-tikki jump back two feet. And now, inch by inch, the head emerged from the grass, and then the swollen neck of the Naga, a great black cobra that was five feet long from tongue to tail. When Nag raised a third of his body, he stopped, swaying back and forth like a dandelion bush swayed by the wind, and looked at Rikki-tikki with evil snake eyes that never change expression, no matter what the snake thinks.
Who is Nag? - he said. - I'm Nag! The great god Brahma imposed his sign on our whole family when the first cobra puffed out its neck to guard the dream of the deity. Watch and be afraid!
Nag puffed out his neck even more, and Rikki-tikki saw a sign on it that looked so much like glasses and their frames. For a moment he was afraid; but the mongoose cannot be afraid for long; in addition, although Rikki-tikki had never seen a live cobra, his mother brought him dead cobras to eat, and he knew very well that the life task of an adult mantus is to fight snakes and eat them. Nag knew it too, and fear stirred in the depths of his cold heart.
- Well, - said Rikki-tikki, and the hair of his tail began to rise, - all the same; whether you have marks on you or not, you have no right to eat chicks that have fallen out of the nest.
Nag thought; at the same time, he watched a slight movement in the grass behind Rikki-tikki. He knew that once mongooses settled in the garden, this, sooner or later, would entail his death and the death of his family, and he wanted to make Rikki-tikki calm down. So he lowered his head a little and tilted it to one side.
“Let's talk,” said Nag, “you eat eggs.” Why shouldn't I eat birds?
- Behind you! Look around! sang Darcy.
Rikki-tikki didn't want to waste time looking around. He jumped as high as possible, and just below him the head of Naga, the evil wife of Naga, flashed with a whistle. While he was talking to Nag, a second cobra was sneaking up behind him to finish him off; now that her blow was in vain, Rikki-tikki heard a vicious hiss. He knelt down on his paws almost across Nagena's back and, if Rikki-tikki were an old mongoose, he would have understood that he should, having bitten her once, break her back; but he feared the terrible turn of the cobra's head. Of course, Ricky bit the snake, but not hard enough, not long enough, and bounced off its whipping tail, leaving a wounded and angry Nagena.
“Evil, evil Darcy,” said Nag, rising as far as he could towards the nest in the thornbush; but Darcy arranged his dwelling in such a way that it was inaccessible to snakes and only swayed slightly.
Rikki-tikki's eyes turned red and blood rushed to them; (when the mongoose's eyes turn red, it means that he is angry); the animal sat on its tail and hind legs, like a small kangaroo, looked around and clattered with rage. Nag and Naguena disappeared into the grass. If the snake fails to attack, it does not say anything and does not show in any way what it is going to do next. Rikki-tikki did not look for cobras; he wasn't sure if he could handle two snakes at once. Therefore, the mongoose ran to the strewn path near the house, sat down and began to think. He had an important job ahead of him.
In old natural history books, you will read that a mongoose bitten by a snake stops fighting, runs away and eats some kind of herb that heals it. It is not true. The mongoose wins only by the swiftness of its eyes and feet; the blows of the snake compete with the jumps of the mongoose, and since no sight can follow the movement of the head of the attacking snake, the victory of the animal can be considered more amazing than any magical herbs. Rikki-tikki knew that he was a young mongoose, and therefore he rejoiced all the more at the thought of saving himself from a blow directed from behind. Everything that happened inspired him with self-confidence, and when running Teddy appeared on the path, Rikki-tikki was not averse to being caressed by him.
Just as Teddy leaned towards him, something stirred slightly in the dust, and a thin voice said:
- Be careful. I am death!
It was a karet, a brownish snake that likes to lie in the dust. Its bite is as dangerous as the bite of a cobra. But the brown snake is so small that no one thinks about it, and therefore it brings people especially much harm.
Rikki-tikki's eyes reddened again, and he jumped up to the carriage with that special swaying movement that he inherited from his relatives. It is a ridiculous gait, but it keeps the animal in such perfect balance that it can rush at the enemy at any angle it likes, and when it comes to snakes, this is a great advantage. Rikki-tikki did not know that he had decided on a more dangerous thing than a fight with Naga! After all, the carriage is so small and can turn so quickly that if Rikki-tikki had not grabbed it near the back of the head, it would have tipped over and bit him in the eye or lip. But Ricky didn't know that; his eyes burned, and he jumped back and forth, looking for the best place to grab the carriage. Karet jumped. Ricky jumped to the side on all fours and tried to rush at her, but a small, vicious dusty gray head flashed near his shoulder; he had to jump over the snake's body; her head followed him and almost touched him.
Teddy turned to the house and shouted:
- Oh, look! Our mongoose kills a snake!
Almost immediately, Ricky heard Teddy's mother exclaim in fright; the boy's father ran out into the garden with a stick, but by the time he approached the battlefield, the carriage was too stretched out, Rikki-tikki made a jump, jumped on the back of the snake and, pressing her head with his front paws, bit him in the back, as close as possible to the head, then jumped to the side. His bite paralyzed the carriage. Rikki-tikki was about to start eating the snake, according to the custom of his family, starting from the tail, when he suddenly remembered that a well-fed mongoose is clumsy and that if he wants to be strong, agile and agile, he needs to stay hungry.
He went off to bathe in the dust under the castor bean bushes. At this time, Teddy's father was beating the dead carriage with a stick.
"For what? thought Rikki-tikki. "I'm done with her!"
Teddy's mother picked up the mongoose from the dust and caressed him, saying that he saved her son from death; Teddy's father noticed that the mongoose was their happiness, and Teddy himself looked at everyone with wide, frightened eyes. This fuss amused Rikki-tikki, who, understandably, did not understand its cause. Teddy's mother might as well caress Teddy for playing in the dust. But Rikki-tikki was fun.
That evening, at dinner, the mongoose paced up and down the table and could have eaten all sorts of tasty things three times to his heart's content, but he remembered Naga and Nagen, and although he was very pleased when Teddy's mother stroked and caressed him, although he liked sitting on Teddy's own shoulder, from time to time, his eyes flashing red fire and his long battle cry was heard: Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!
Teddy carried him to his bed and wanted to put him under his chin without fail. Rikki-tikki was too well-bred to bite or scratch the boy, but as soon as Teddy fell asleep, the mongoose jumped to the floor, went to inspect the house and in the dark came across Chuchundra, a musky rat, who was sneaking along the wall. Chuchundra is a small animal with a broken heart. All night she whimpers and squeaks, trying to force herself to run into the middle of the room, but she never dares to do so.
“Don’t kill me,” Chuchundra asked, almost crying. Don't kill me, Rikki-tikki!
“Do you think the snake-killer kills the musky rats?” Rikki-tikki said contemptuously.
“He who kills snakes is killed by snakes,” Chuchundra said even more sadly. “And how can I be sure that someday on a dark night, Nag will not mistake me for you?”
“There is nothing to be afraid of,” said Rikki-tikki, “besides, Nag is in the garden, and I know you don’t go out there.
- My relative Chua, a rat, told me ... - Chuchundra began and fell silent.
- What did she say?
- Shh! Naga everywhere, Rikki-tikki. You should have talked to Chua the rat in the garden.
“I didn’t talk to her, so you have to tell me everything. Hurry, Chuchundra, or I'll bite you!
Chuchundra sat down and wept; tears rolled down her mustache.
"I'm unhappy," she sobbed. I don't have the courage to run out into the middle of the room. Shh! I don't have to tell you anything. Can't you hear yourself, Rikki-tikki?
Rikki-tikki listened. The house was quiet, but he thought he could hear an incredibly faint "creak-creak" - a sound no stronger than the creak of a wasp's paws roaming the window pane - the dry scratch of snake scales on bricks.
“This is Nag or Nagena,” Rikki-tikki thought to himself, “and the snake is crawling into the bathroom gutter. You're right, Chuchundra, I should have talked to Chua the rat.
He quietly entered Teddy's bathroom; there was nothing; then looked into the bathroom of the boy's mother. Down here, in the smooth plastered wall below, a brick had been taken out to drain the water, and as Rikki-tikki crept past the bathtub embedded in the floor, he heard Nag and Nagena whispering in the moonlight beyond the wall outside.
“When the house is empty,” Nagena told her husband, “he will have to leave, and then we will again completely take over the garden.” Slowly crawl in and remember: first of all, you need to bite the big man who killed the karet. Then come back, tell me everything, and we'll hunt Rikki-tikki together.
“Are you sure that we will achieve something by killing people?” Nag asked.
- We will achieve everything. Were there mongooses in the garden when no one lived in a bungalow? While the house is empty, we are king and queen in the garden; and remember, as soon as the eggs burst in the melon bed (which may happen tomorrow), our children will need peace and space.
"I didn't think of that," Nag said. “I'll crawl in, but we don't need to chase Rikki-tikki. I will kill the big man, his wife and child, if possible, and return. The bungalow will be empty, and Rikki-tikki will leave on his own.
Rikki-tikki was trembling all over with rage and hatred, but then Naga's head appeared from the chute, and then five feet of his cold body. No matter how angry Rikki-tikki was, but when he saw the size of a huge cobra, he felt fear. Nag curled up, lifted his head and looked into the dark bathroom; Ricky noticed that his eyes were shining.
“If I kill him here, Nagen will know it, and besides, if I fight him in the middle of the floor, all the benefits will be on his side. What should I do? thought Rikki-tikki-tavi.
Nag writhed in different directions, and soon the mongoose heard that he was drinking from the largest water jug, which was usually used to fill the bath.
“Look,” said Nag, “the big man killed the carriage with a stick.” Maybe he still has this stick, but in the morning he will come to bathe without it. I'll wait for him here. Nagena, do you hear? I'll wait here until the morning, in the cold.
No answer was heard from outside, and Rikki-tikki realized that Nagena had crawled away. Nag began to fit into a large jug, wrapping the rings of his body around the bulge at its bottom, and Rikki-tikki sat as quiet as death. An hour has passed; the mongoose slowly, straining one muscle after another, moved towards the jug. Nag was asleep, and looking at his broad back, Ricky wondered where it would be best to grab a cobra with his teeth. “If I don’t break his spine at the first jump,” Ricky thought, “he will fight, and the fight with Nag ... Oh Ricky!”
He measured the thickness of the snake's neck with his eyes, but it was too wide for him; biting the cobra near the tail, he would only infuriate her.
“It’s best to cling to the head,” he thought to himself at last, “to the head above the hood; having let my teeth into the Naga, I must not unclench them.
He jumped. The snake's head protruded slightly from the water jug and lay below its neck. As soon as Ricky's teeth closed, the mongoose rested his back on the bulge of the red crock to hold the snake's head. This gave him a second of benefit, and he made good use of it. But Nag immediately began shaking him as a dog shakes a rat; dragged him back and forth across the floor, raised, lowered, waved him, but the eyes of the mongoose burned with red fire and he did not unclench his teeth. The snake dragged him across the floor; a tin ladle, a soap dish, a body brush, everything scattered in different directions. Ricky hit the zinc wall of the tub and tightened his jaw. Ricky, for the honor of his family, wished to be found with his teeth closed. His head was spinning. Suddenly there was something like a thunderclap; it seemed to him that he was flying to pieces; hot air engulfed him, and he fainted; red fire seared his fur. The noise woke the big man, and he fired both barrels of his gun at Nag's head, above the extension of the cobra's neck.
Rikki-tikki did not open his eyes; he was quite sure that he had been killed; but the snake's head did not move, and, raising the animal, the Englishman said:
“It's the mongoose again, Alice; the baby has now saved our lives.
Teddy's mother came, completely pale, looked and saw what was left of Nag. Meanwhile, Rikki-tikki hobbled into Teddy's bedroom and quietly examined himself for half the rest of the night to find out if, as he thought, his bones were really broken in forty places.
In the morning he felt tired all over his body, but he was very pleased with what he had accomplished.
“Now I have to deal with Nagena, although she will be more dangerous than five Nagas; besides, no one knows when the eggs she mentioned will burst. Yes, yes, I must talk to Darcy, the mongoose said to himself.
Without waiting for breakfast, Rikki-tikki ran to the thorn bush, where Darcy sang a triumphant song at the top of his voice. The news of Nag's death spread throughout the garden because the janitor threw his body on a garbage heap.
“Oh, you stupid bunch of feathers! Rikki-tikki said angrily. Is it time to sing now?
“Nag is dead, dead, dead!” Darcy sang. The brave Rikki-tikki grabbed his head and squeezed it tightly. The big man brought a rattling stick, and Nag split into two parts. Never again will he eat my chicks.
– All this is true, but where is Nagena? Rikki-tikki asked, looking around carefully.
“Nagena approached the drain of the bathroom, I called Naga,” Darcy continued. - And Nag appeared at the end of the stick; the janitor stabbed him with the end of a stick and threw him on the rubbish heap. Let's sing the great, red-eyed Rikki-tikki!
Darcy's neck puffed out, and he continued to sing.
“If only I could get to your nest, I would throw out all your children,” said Rikki-tikki. “You don’t know how to do anything in your time. You're not in danger in your nest, but down here I'm at war. Wait a minute to sing, Darcy.
“For the sake of the great, for the sake of the beautiful Rikki-tikki, I will shut up,” said Darcy. “What do you want, O conqueror of the terrible Naga?”
- Where is Nagena, I ask you for the third time?
- On a garbage pile, near the stables; she mourns Naga! Great Rikki-tikki with white teeth!
- Throw away my white teeth. Have you heard where her balls are?
- At the end of the melon ridge closest to the fence; where the sun shines most of the day. A few weeks ago she buried them in this place.
"Didn't you think to tell me about them?" So, next to the wall, then?
“But you won’t eat her eggs, Rikki-tikki?”
“I can’t say that I was going to eat them; No. Darcy, if you have any sense in your head, fly to the stable, pretend you have a broken wing, and let Nagena chase you all the way to this bush. I must go to the melon patch, but if I run there now, she will see me.
Darcy was a small creature with a bird's brain, which never contained more than one thought at once; only because Nagena's children were born in eggs, like his own, it seemed to him that it was dishonest to kill them. oskazkah.ru - site But his wife was a prudent bird and knew that cobra eggs portend the appearance of young cobras. So she flew out of the nest, leaving Darcy to keep the chicks warm and continue to sing about Naga's death. In some respects, Darcy was very human.
The bird began to flutter in front of Nagena near the heap of rubbish, shouting:
“Ah, my wing is broken!” A boy from home threw a stone at me and killed him. And she fluttered even more desperately than before.
Nagaina raised her head and hissed:
“You warned Rikki-tikki when I could have killed him. Truly you have chosen a bad place to hobble. And, gliding over a layer of dust, the cobra moved towards Darcy's wife.
“The boy broke my wing with a stone!” cried Darcy the bird.
“Well, maybe it will be a consolation for you if I tell you that when you die, I will settle accounts with this boy. It's morning now and my husband is lying on a pile of rubbish, and before night falls the boy will be lying motionless in the house. Why are you running away? I'll still get you. Fool, look at me.
But Darcy's wife knew very well that "this" was not necessary, because, looking into the snake's eyes, the bird is so frightened that it loses the ability to move. With a sad squeak, Darcy's wife continued to flutter her wings and run away without rising from the ground. Nagaena crawled faster.
Rikki-tikki heard that they were moving along the path from the stables and rushed to the end of the melon ridge closest to the fence. There, on the hot manure and very cunningly hidden between the melons, were snake eggs, twenty-five in all, about the size of bentham eggs (a breed of chickens), but with a whitish leathery shell, and not in a shell.
“I didn't come early,” thought Ricky. Through the leathery shell, he could see inside the eggs coiled cobra cubs, and he knew that every barely hatched kite could kill a man or a mongoose. He bit the tops of the eggs as quickly as possible, not forgetting to carefully crush the little cobras. From time to time the mongoose looked to see if he missed even one egg. There were only three left, and Rikki-tikki was already chuckling to himself, when suddenly the cry of his wife Darcy reached him!
- Rikki-tikki, I took Nagena to the house, she crawled onto the veranda ... Oh, rather, she wants to kill!
Rikki-tikki crushed two eggs, rolled down from the ridge and, grabbing the third in his mouth, ran to the veranda, moving his feet very quickly. Teddy, his father and mother were sitting there at an early breakfast, but Rikki-tikki immediately saw that they were not eating anything. They didn't move like stone, and their faces turned white. On the mat, near Teddy's chair, Nagena lay curled up, and her head was at such a distance that she could bite the boy's bare leg every minute. The cobra swayed back and forth and sang a triumphant song.
“Son of the big man who killed the Nag,” she hissed, “don’t move!” I'm not ready yet. Wait a little. Don't move, all three of you. If you move, I will bite; If you don't move, I'll bite too. Oh foolish people who killed my Naga!
Teddy kept his eyes on his father, and his father could only whisper:
“Sit still, Teddy. You mustn't move. Teddy, don't move!
Rikki-tikki went up to the veranda:
“Turn around, Naguena, turn around and start the fight.
“All in due time,” the cobra replied, never taking her eyes off Teddy. “I will soon settle my scores with you. Look at your friends, Rikki-tikki. They don't move; they are completely white; they are afraid. People dare not move, and if you take another step, I will bite.
“Look at your eggs,” said Rikki-tikki, “there on the melon ridge, near the fence!” Crawl over there and look at them, Nagaena.
The big snake made a half turn and saw its egg on the veranda.
- Ahh! Give it to me! - she said.
Rikki-tikki put an egg between his front paws; his eyes were red as blood.
How much for a snake egg? For a young cobra? For a young king cobra? For the last, the very last of the entire brood? There, on the melon bed, the ants eat the rest.
Nagena turned completely; she forgot everything for the sake of her only egg, and Rikki-tikki saw that Teddy's father reached out his big hand, grabbed Teddy by the shoulder, dragged him over the small table with teacups, so that the boy was safe and out of Nagena's reach.
“Deceived, deceived, deceived, ricky-tck-tck!” Rikki-tikki laughed. - The boy is saved, and it's me, me, I caught Nag in the bathroom at night. - And the mongoose began to jump on all four legs at once, lowering his head to the floor. - Nag threw me in all directions, but could not shake me off. He died before the big man broke him in two. I did it. Ricky ticky tick tick! Come on, Nagaena, fight me quickly. You won't be a widow for long.
Nagaina realized what she had lost opportunity kill Teddy! In addition, her egg lay between the legs of the mongoose.
“Give me the egg, Rikki-tikki, give me the last of my eggs, and I'll leave here and never come back,” she said, and her neck narrowed.
– Yes, you will disappear and never come back, because you will go to a pile of garbage, to Nag. Fight, widow! The big man went for his gun. Fight!
Rikki-tikki's eyes were like hot coals, and he jumped around Nagena, keeping at such a distance that she could not bite him. Nagena cringed and made a jump forward. Rikki-tikki jumped into the air and backed away from her; the cobra rushed again, again and again. Each time her head fell with a thud onto the mats of the veranda, and the snake coiled like a clock spring. Finally, Rikki-tikki began, jumping, to describe circles, hoping to find himself behind the snake, and Nagena wriggled, trying to keep her head against his head, and the rustle of her tail on the mat was like the rustle of dry leaves driven by the wind.
The mongoose forgot about the egg. It was still lying on the veranda, and Nagena was getting closer and closer to it. And so, at that moment, when Rikki-tikki paused to take a breath, the cobra grabbed its egg in its mouth, turned to the stairs, went down from the veranda and, like an arrow, flew along the path; Rikki-tikki ran after her. When a cobra saves its life, it moves like a thong of a whip that curves around the horse's neck.
Rikki-tikki knew that he had to catch her, otherwise everything would start all over again. Nagena was heading towards the tall grass near the thorn bushes and, rushing after her, Rikki-tikki heard that Darcy was still singing his stupid triumphal song. Darcy's wife was smarter than her husband. When Nagena rushed past her nest, she flew out of it and flapped her wings over the cobra's head. If Darcy had helped his friend and Ricky, they might have made her turn, but now Nagena only narrowed her neck and slid on. Nevertheless, a short stop gave Ricky the opportunity to run closer to her, and when the cobra descended into the hole that made up their dwelling with Nag, his white teeth grabbed her by the tail, and he went underground with her, although very few mongooses, even the most smart and old, they decide to rush after the snake to her house. It was dark in the hole, and Rikki-tikki did not know where the underground passage could expand and enable Nagene to turn and bite him. He held onto her tail with all his might, spreading his small legs to act as a brake, resting against the black, hot, wet earth slope.
The grass near the entrance to the hole stopped swaying, and Darcy remarked:
“It's over for Rikki-tikki. We must sing a song in honor of his death. The brave Rikki-tikki is dead! Of course, Nagena killed him underground.
And he sang a very sad song, which he composed, inspired by this moment, but just as the singer got to its most touching part, the grass stirred again and Rikki-tikki, covered with mud, appeared; Step by step, barely stepping, he stepped out of the hole and licked his mustache. Darcy broke off with a slight exclamation. Rikki-tikki shook off some of the dust from his fur and sneezed.
“It's all over,” he said. “The widow will never go outside again.
The red ants that live between the grass stalks heard his remark, fussed, and one by one went to see if he was telling the truth.
Rikki-tikki curled up in the grass and fell asleep. He slept for the rest of the day; the mongoose did a good job that day.
“Now,” the animal said waking up, “I will return to the house; you, Darcy, tell the coppersmith about what happened, he will announce the death of Nagena throughout the garden.
Coppersmith - a bird whose cry resembles the blows of a small hammer on a copper cup; he shouts thus because he is the herald of every garden in India, and brings the message to all who will listen. As Rikki-tikki moved down the path, he heard his cry for "attention" that sounded like a tiny dinner gong. After that, it was heard: “Ding-dong-tok! Nag is dead! Dong! Nagena is dead! Ding dong tok. And then all the birds in the garden began to sing, all the frogs began to croak; after all, Nag and Nagena ate not only birds, but also frogs.
When Ricky approached the house, Teddy, Teddy's mother (she was still pale, as she had just recovered from a faint) and Teddy's father came out to meet him; they almost cried over the mongoose. In the evening he ate whatever was given to him as long as he could eat and lay down to sleep on Teddy's shoulder; when the boy's mother came late at night to look at her son, she saw Ricky.
“He saved our lives and saved Teddy,” she told her husband. – Just think; he delivered us all from death.
Rikki-tikki suddenly woke up: the mongooses are sleeping in a very light sleep.
“Oh, it's you,” he said. - What are you up to? All cobras are killed; and if not, I'm here.
Rikki-tikki could be proud; however, he was not too proud and guarded the garden, as befitted a mongoose - with teeth and jumps; and not a single cobra dared to show itself again behind the garden fence.
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A fairy tale by Rikki Tikki Tavi about a brave snake fighter, a small mongoose. Not only children, but also their parents will be interested in reading an exciting fairy tale. Recommended for online reading with children.
Tale of Rikki Tikki Tavi read
During a heavy downpour, the little mongoose almost died. The English family saved the funny animal and kept it. The curious mongoose explored the garden and the house and found a lot of interesting things there. In the garden, he met the bird Darcy, who had a grief: one of her chicks was eaten by Nag. There was a hiss, and Nag and Nagena appeared. Ricky was a little scared, but he remembered the lessons of his mother: the purpose of mongooses is to destroy snakes. He could not cope with two snakes, but attacked Nagena and bit her. The snakes did not expect an attack from the baby mongoose, so they hid in the grass. On the same day, the mongoose saved Teddy, the owner's son, from a small brown snake that wanted to bite the boy. After this incident, Ricky Tikki Tavi became everyone's favorite. The mongoose met the musky rat Chuchundra. She was so cowardly that she was afraid to run into the middle of the room, but she had good hearing. Chuchundra warned Rikki that Nag and Nagena were going to break into the house to kill the owners. The mongoose boldly pounced on Nag, who proved to be a strong opponent. The owner, hearing the noise, ran and shot the snake. So the mongoose again saved his masters from death. Ricky understood that it was necessary to deal with Nagena and destroy the eggs from which her offspring was about to hatch. Otherwise, everyone will be in danger. Darcy told him where the cobra eggs were. She distracted Nagena's attention while the mongoose dealt with her offspring. But Nagen decided not to hesitate. She crawled to the veranda where the Englishman's family was dining to avenge Nag's death. The cobra was about to pounce on Teddy. And then Ricky appeared with an egg in his mouth. He warned the cobra that this was the last egg from the brood. Nagena grabbed the egg with her teeth and rushed into her hole with an arrow. Ricky pursued her until he overtook her. Everyone admired the bravery of the little mongoose, who saved the life of an entire family. You can read the story online on our website.
Analysis of the tale of Rikki Tikki Tavi
For Kipling, life is a struggle. IN fairy tale Rikki Tikki Tavi, as in many other works, Kipling shows that only strong personalities can withstand life's difficulties. The bright characters of the fairy tale will help readers to draw a parallel with human types and characters. Rikki Tikki Tavi is a selfless and courageous fighter for justice. Nag and Nagena are gross evil and permissiveness. Darcy is very reminiscent of people who talk and complain a lot, but are not capable of decisive action. Chuchundra embodies cowardice. The little mongoose, with his fearlessness and intolerance for evil, sets an example for Darcy, who moves from ranting to action and begins to help Ricky in the fight against snakes. Many representatives human society a good push or a leader is also needed to start the fight against evil.
Moral of Rikki Tikki Tavi's Tale
Not superiority in strength, but courage and a sense of duty help to defeat even the strongest opponent. Manifestations of evil or violence must be fought. This is what Rikki Tikki Tavi's tale teaches.
Proverbs, sayings and expressions of a fairy tale
- Run, find out and sniff out!
- Talk less, do more!
- The one who does not flinch wins.
This is a story about the great war that Rikki-Tikki-Tavi fought alone in the bathroom of a large house in the village of Sigauli.
Darzi, the tailor bird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the musky rat (muskrat, found mainly in North America. - Ed.) - the one that never runs out into the middle of the room, but always sneaks up against the very wall - gave him advice . But he really fought alone.
Rikki-Tiki-Tavi was a mongoose (a small predatory animal with an elongated flexible body and short legs, found in tropical countries. - Ed.). His tail and fur were like those of a small cat, and his head and all the habits were like those of a weasel. His eyes were pink, and the tip of his restless nose was also pink. Ricky could scratch himself wherever he pleased, no matter what paw: front or back. And he knew how to fluff his tail so that the tail looked like a round long brush. And his battle cry as he raced through the tall grasses was rikki-tikki-tikki-tikki-chk!
He lived with his father and mother in a narrow hollow. But one summer there was a flood, and the water carried him along the roadside ditch. He kicked and thrashed as best he could. Finally he managed to grab hold of a floating tuft of grass, and so he held on until he lost consciousness. He woke up in the hot sun in the garden, in the middle of the path, tormented and dirty, and at that time some boy said:
- Dead mongoose! Let's have a funeral!
“No,” said the boy’s mother, “let’s take him and dry him.” Maybe he's still alive.
They carried him into the house, and some big man took him with two fingers and said that he was not dead at all, but only drowned in the water. Then they wrapped him in cotton wool and began to warm him by the fire. He opened his eyes and sneezed.
"Now," said the Big Man, "don't scare him, and we'll see what he does."
There is nothing more difficult in the world than to frighten a mongoose, because he is burning with curiosity from nose to tail. “Run Find out and Smell” - is inscribed on the mongoose family crest, and Rikki-Tikki was a purebred mongoose, he peered into the cotton wool, realized that it was not fit for food, ran around the table, sat on his hind legs, put his fur in order and jumped on the boy's shoulder.
"Don't be afraid, Teddy," said the Big Man. “He wants to be friends with you.
- Hey, he's tickling my neck! Teddy screamed.
Rikki-tikki looked behind his collar, sniffed his ear and, going down to the floor, began to rub his nose.
- These are miracles! said Teddin's mother. - And it's called a wild animal! It's true, he's so tame because we've been kind to him.
“Mongooses are like that,” her husband said. - If Teddy does not pick him up from the floor by the tail and does not take it into his head to put him in a cage, he will settle with us and will run around the house ... Let's give him something to eat.
He was given a small piece of raw meat. He really liked meat. After breakfast, he immediately ran to the veranda, sat down in the sun and fluffed out his fur to dry it to the very roots. And immediately he felt better.
“There are many things in this house that I must scout out as soon as possible. My parents had never explored so much in their entire lives. I'll stay here and explore everything as it is."
All that day he did nothing but roam the house. He almost drowned in the bath, he stuck his nose in the ink, and immediately after that he burned his nose on the cigar that the Big Man was smoking, because he climbed on his knees to the Big Man to watch how they write with pen on paper. In the evening he ran into Teddin's bedroom to see how the kerosene lamps were lit. And when Teddy went to bed, Rikki-tikki crouched down beside him, but turned out to be a restless neighbor, because at every rustle he jumped up and alerted and ran to find out what was the matter. Father and mother went before going to bed to check on their sleeping son and saw that Rikki-tikki was not sleeping, but was sitting on his pillow.
"I don't like it," said Teddin's mother. What if he bites the child?
"Don't be afraid," said the father. - This little animal will protect him better than any dog. If, for example, a snake crawls in...
But Teddin's mother did not want to think about such horrors. By morning breakfast, Ricky rode onto the veranda astride Teddin's shoulder. He was given a banana and a piece of egg. He was on everyone's knees, because a good mongoose never loses hope of becoming a pet mongoose. Each of them from childhood dreams that he will live in a human house and run from room to room.
After breakfast, Rikki-tikki ran out into the garden to see if there was anything remarkable there. The garden was large, only half cleared. Huge roses grew in it - each bush was like an arbor - and bamboo groves, and orange trees, and lemon trees, and dense thickets of tall grass. Rikki-tikki even licked his lips.
- A good place to hunt! - he said.
And as soon as he thought about hunting, his tail swelled up like a round brush. He quickly ran around the whole neighborhood, sniffed here, sniffed there, and suddenly someone's sad voices reached him from the thorn bush. There, in the thorn bush, lived Darzi, the tailor bird, and his wife. They had a beautiful nest: they sewed it from two huge leaves with thin fibrous twigs and stuffed it with soft down and cotton. The nest swayed in all directions, and they sat on the edge and cried loudly.
- What's happened? Rikki-tikki asked.
- A big misfortune! Darzi replied. “One of our chicks fell out of the nest yesterday and Nag swallowed it.
“Hm,” said Rikki-tikki, “this is very sad... But I've been here recently... I'm not from here... Who is Nag?
Darzi and his wife darted into the nest and did not answer, because from the thick grass, from under the bush, a low hiss was heard - a terrible, cold sound that made Rikki-tikki jump back a full two feet. Then from the grass, higher and higher, an inch by inch, the head of Nag, a huge black cobra (poisonous spectacled snake; behind, slightly below the head, it has a pattern resembling glasses. - Ed.), began to rise - and there was this Nag of five feet in length from head to tail.
When a third of his body rose above the ground, he stopped and began to sway like a dandelion in the wind, and looked at Rikki-tikki with his evil snake eyes, which always remain the same, no matter what Nag thinks about.
“Are you asking who Nag is?” Look at me and shiver! Because Nag is me...
And he inflated his hood (when the cobra is angry, it puffs up its neck so that it looks like a hood. - Ed.), And Rikki-tikki saw a spectacle mark on the hood, exactly like a steel loop from a steel hook.
Ricky was scared - for a minute. For more than one minute, mongooses are generally not afraid of anyone, and although Rikki-Tikki had never seen a live cobra, since his mother fed him dead ones, he well understood that mongooses exist in the world to fight snakes, defeat them and eat. This was known to the Nagu, and therefore there was fear in the depths of his cold heart.
- So what! - said Rikki-tikki, and his tail began to swell again. “Do you think that if you have a pattern on your back, then you have the right to swallow chicks that fall out of the nest?”
Nag was thinking about something else at that time and vigilantly peered to see if the grass was stirring behind Ricky's back. He knew that if mongooses appeared in the garden, then both he and the whole snake family would soon come to an end. But now he needed to lull the attention of the enemy. So he bent his head a little, and tilting it to one side, he said:
- Let's talk. You eat bird eggs, don't you? Why don't I eat birds?
- Behind! Behind! Look around! Darzi sang at that time.
But Rikki-tikki understood well that there was no time to stare. He jumped as high as possible and below him saw the hissing head of Nagaina, the evil wife of Naga. She crept up behind while Nag was talking to him and wanted to finish him off. She hissed because Ricky had eluded her. Ricky jumped up and fell right on her back, and if he were older, he would know that now is the time to bite her back with his teeth: one bite - and you're done! But he was afraid that she would whip him with her terrible tail. However, he bit her, but not as hard as he should have, and immediately bounced off the coils of the tail, leaving the snake furious and injured.
“Ugly, ugly Darzy!” - said Nag and stretched himself up as far as he could to reach the nest hanging on a thorn bush.
But Darzi deliberately built his nest so high that the snakes could not reach him, and the nest only swayed on the branch.
Rikki-tikki felt that his eyes were getting redder and hotter, and when the mongoose's eyes turn red, it means that he is very angry. He sat on his tail and on his hind legs, like a little kangaroo, and, looking in all directions, chattered with rage. But there was no one to fight with: Nag and Nagaina darted into the grass and disappeared. When a snake happens to miss, it does not say a single word or show what it is going to do. Rikki-tikki didn't even try to chase the enemies, as he wasn't sure if he could handle both at once. He trotted towards the house, sat down on the sandy path, and thought deeply. Yes, and there was something.
When you happen to read old books about various animals, you will read that a mongoose stung by a snake immediately runs away and eats some kind of herb that seems to cure him of the bite. This is not true. The victory of the mongoose over the cobra is in the speed of his eyes and paws. A cobra has a bite, a mongoose has a jump.
And since no eye can follow the movement of the snake's head when it wants to sting, this jump of the mongoose is more wonderful than any magical grass.
Rikki-tikki was well aware that he was still young and inexperienced. That was why he was so glad to think that he had contrived to dodge the attack from behind. He felt great respect for himself, and when Teddy ran up to him along the garden path, he was not averse to letting the boy pet him. But just at the moment when Teddy bent over him, something flickered, writhing in the dust, and a thin voice said: “Watch out! I am death!" It was Karaite, a dusty gray snake that loves to wallow in the sand. Her sting is as poisonous as that of a cobra, but because she is small, no one notices her, and thus she brings people even more harm.
Rikki-tikki's eyes turned red again, and he, dancing, ran up to Karait with that special, uneven gait he had inherited from his forefathers. The gait is funny, but very comfortable, because it gives you the opportunity to make a jump at any angle. And when you're dealing with snakes, that's the most important thing. The duel with Karaite was even more dangerous for Ricky than the battle with Nag, because Karaite is such a small, nimble and agile snake that if Ricky does not dig into her from behind with his teeth just below the head, Karaite will certainly sting him either in the eye or in lip.
However, Ricky didn't know that. His eyes were completely reddened, he no longer thought about anything - he walked and swayed back and forth, looking for where it would be better for him to sink his teeth. Karaite ran into him. Ricky jumped sideways and wanted to bite her, but the damned dusty gray head appeared at the very back of his head, and in order to throw her off his back, he had to roll over in the air. She did not lag behind and rushed at his heels.
Teddy turned to the house and shouted:
“Come and see: our mongoose is killing a snake!”
And Rikki-tikki heard Teddin's mother scream. The boy's father ran out with a stick, but just at that time Karait made an unsuccessful dash - farther than necessary - and Rikki-tikki jumped on her and dug his teeth a little below her head, and then rolled away. Karaite immediately stopped moving, and Rikki-tikki was already preparing to eat her, starting with the tail (such is the dinner custom among mongooses), when he remembered that mongooses get heavier from hearty food and that if he wants to maintain his agility and strength, he must remain thin . He walked away and began to tumble in the dust under the castor bean bush, while Teddin's father attacked the dead woman with a stick.
“What is it for?” thought Ricky. “Because I already finished her off.”
And then Teddy's mother ran up to Rikki-tikki, picked him up right out of the dust and began to hug him tightly, shouting that he had saved her son from death, and Teddy made big eyes, and there was fear in his eyes. Ricky liked the commotion, but why it happened, of course, he could not understand. Why do they caress him so much? After all, for him to fight with snakes is the same as for Teddy somersaults in the dust - a pleasure.
When they sat down to dinner, Rikki-tikki, walking along the tablecloth among glasses and glasses, could stuff his belly three times with the most delicious delicacies, but he remembered Naga and Nagaina, and although he was very pleased that Teddin's mother was squeezing and stroking him, and that Teddy puts him on his shoulder, but his eyes were constantly reddening, and he let out his war cry: ricky-tikki-tikki-tikki-chk!
Teddy took him to his bed. The boy certainly wanted Ricky to sleep under his chin, on his chest. Ricky was a well-bred mongoose and could not bite or scratch him, but as soon as Teddy fell asleep, he got out of bed and went to travel around the house.
In the darkness, he stumbled upon the musky rat Chuchundra, who was sneaking closer to the wall.
Chuchundra has a broken heart. She's whining and whining all night and wants to muster up the courage to run out into the middle of the room. But she never has the courage.
Don't kill me, Rikki-tikki! she screamed and almost cried.
- Who kills a snake, will he bother with some musky rat! Rikki-tikki replied contemptuously.
- He who kills a snake from a snake will perish! Chuchundra said even sadder. “And who knows if Nag will kill me by mistake? He will think that I am you...
Well, he never thinks about it! Rikki-tikki said. “Besides, he’s in the garden, and you never go there.
“My cousin, the rat Chua, told me…” Chuchundra began and fell silent.
- What did she say?
– Shh... Nag is omnipresent – he is everywhere. You should have talked to my sister in the garden yourself.
But I didn't see her. Speak now! Hurry up, Chuchundra, otherwise I'll bite you.
Chuchundra sat down on her haunches and began to cry. She wept for a long time, tears flowing down her mustache.
- I'm so unhappy! she sobbed. “I never had the heart to run out into the middle of the room. Shh! But can't you hear, Rikki-tikki? It's better for me not to say anything.
Rikki-tikki listened. There was silence in the house, but it seemed to him that he could barely hear a quiet, barely audible shh, as if a wasp had passed over the glass. It was the rustle of snake scales on the brick floor.
“Either Nag, or Nagini! he decided. “Some of them are crawling down the gutter into the bathroom…”
- That's right, Chuchundra. Too bad I didn't talk to your Chua.
He crept into Teddin's washroom, but there was no one there. From there he made his way to Teddy's mother's washroom. There, in the smooth plastered wall, near the floor, a brick for the gutter was taken out, and as Ricky made his way along the stone edge of the recess into which the bath was inserted, he heard Nag and Nagini whispering behind the wall, in the moonlight.
“If there are no people in the house,” Nagaina told her husband, “he will also leave from there, and the garden will be ours again.” Go, don't worry and remember that you must first sting the Big Man who killed Karaite. Then come back to me and we'll finish off Rikki-tikki together.
“But would it be of any use to us if we killed them?”
- Still would! Huge. When the house was empty, were there mongooses here? While no one lives in the house, you and I are the kings of the whole garden: you are the king, I am the queen. Do not forget: when our children hatch from eggs on the melon bed (and this may happen tomorrow), they will need peace and comfort.
"I didn't think of that," Nag said. - Ok, I'm going. But it doesn't seem to make any sense to challenge Rikki-tikki to a fight. I will kill the Big Man and his wife, and also, if I succeed, his son, and crawl away on the sly. Then the house will be empty, and Rikki-tikki himself will leave here.
Rikki-tikki was trembling all over with indignation and rage.
Nag's head poked through the hole, followed by five feet of his cold torso. Rikki-tikki, although he was furious, was still horrified when he saw how huge this cobra was. Nag curled up into a ring, raised his head and began to peer into the darkness of the bathroom. Rikki-tikki could see his eyes twinkle.
“If I kill him now,” thought Rikki-tikki, “Nagini will immediately know about it. Fighting in an open place is very unprofitable for me: Nag can defeat me. What should I do?"
Nag swayed right and left, and then Rikki-tikki heard him drinking water from a large jug that served to fill the bath.
- Wonderful! - said Nag, quenching his thirst. “The Big Man had a stick when he ran out to kill Karaite. Perhaps this stick is with him even now. But when he comes here this morning to wash himself, he will, of course, be without a stick... Nagaina, do you hear me?... I'll wait for him here, in the chill, until dawn...
No one answered Nagu, and Rikki-Tikki realized that Nagaina had left. Nag wrapped himself around a large jug near the floor and fell asleep. And Rikki-tikki stood silent as death. An hour later, he began to move toward the jug, muscle by muscle. Ricky peered into Naga's broad back and thought about where to sink his teeth.
“If I don’t bite his neck in the first moment, he will still have the strength to fight me, and if he fights, oh Ricky!”
He looked at how thick Nag's neck was - no, he could not cope with such a neck. And to bite somewhere closer to the tail - only provoke the enemy.
“The head remains! he decided. - Head above the hood. And if you cling to it, then don’t let it go for anything. ”
He made the jump. The head of the snake lay slightly on the fly away; having bitten through it with his teeth, Rikki-tikki could rest his back against the ledge of an earthen jar and prevent his head from rising from the ground. In this way, he won only a second, but he made excellent use of this second. And then he was picked up and clattered to the ground, and began to shake in all directions, like a dog shakes a rat, and up and down, and in large circles, but his eyes were red, and he did not leave the snake when she thrashed him on the floor , throwing tin ladles, soap dishes, brushes in different directions, and beat him against the edges of a metal bath.
He clenched his jaw tighter and tighter, because although he thought that his death had come, he decided to meet her without opening his teeth. This was required by the honor of his family.
He was dizzy, nauseous, and felt as if he had been smashed to pieces. Suddenly, behind him, it was as if thunder struck, and a hot whirlwind rushed at him and knocked him down, and red fire seared his fur. This Big Man, awakened by the noise, came running with a hunting rifle, fired from both barrels at once and hit Nagu in the place where his hood ends. Rikki-tikki lay with his teeth clenched, and his eyes were closed, as he considered himself dead.
But the snake head no longer moved. The Big Man lifted Ricky off the ground and said:
– Look, our mongoose again. That night, Alice, he saved us from death - both you and me.
Then Teddin's mother came in with a very white face and saw what was left of Naga. And Rikki-tikki somehow dragged himself to Teddin's bedroom and all night did nothing but shake himself, as if wanting to check whether it was true that his body was broken into forty pieces, or it only seemed to him so in battle.
When morning came, he seemed to be frozen all over, but he was very pleased with his exploits.
“Now I have to finish off Nagaina, and this is more difficult than dealing with a dozen Nagas ... And then there are these eggs that she was talking about. I don't even know when they'll hatch into baby serpents... Damn it! I'll go and talk to Darzi."
Without waiting for breakfast, Rikki-tikki rushed with all his might to the thorn bush. Darzi sat in the nest and sang a joyful victory song with all his might. The whole garden already knew about Nag's death because the janitor threw his body into the dump.
- Oh, you stupid bunch of feathers! Rikki-tikki said angrily. Is now the time for songs?
“Nag is dead, dead, dead!” Darzi spluttered. - The brave Rikki-tikki dug his teeth into him! And the Big Man brought a stick that makes bam, and broke the Naga in two, two, two! Never again will Nagu devour my children!
"It's all true," said Rikki-tikki. - But where is Nagaina? And he looked around carefully.
And Darzi continued to pour:
- Nagini came to the drainpipe,
And Naga Nagaina called to herself,
But the watchman took Nag on a stick
And threw Naga in the landfill.
Glory, glory, great
Red-eyed hero Rikki-tikki! ..
And Darzi repeated his victory song again.
- If I could get to your nest, I would throw out all the chicks from there! shouted Rikki-tikki. “Or don’t you know that everything has its time?” It’s good for you to sing upstairs, but I don’t have time for songs down here: I need to go to war again! Stop singing for a minute.
- Well, I'm ready to shut up for you - for the hero, for the beautiful Ricky! Whatever the Vicious Naga's Conqueror wants?
- For the third time I ask you: where is Nagaina?
- Above the garbage heap, she is at the stable, she is crying about Naga ... Great white-toothed Ricky! ..
Leave my white teeth alone! Do you know where she hid the eggs?
- At the very edge, on a melon ridge, under a fence, where the sun is all day until sunset ... Many weeks have passed since she buried these eggs ...
“And you didn’t even think to tell me about it!” So under the fence, at the very edge?
“Rikki-tikki won’t go and swallow those eggs!”
- No, do not swallow, but ... Darzee, if you have even a drop of mind left, fly right now to the stable and pretend that your wing is broken, and let Nagini chase you to this bush, you understand? I have to get to the melon patch, and if I go there now, she'll notice.
Darzi had a bird's mind, his tiny head never contained more than one thought at once. And since he knew that the children of Nagaina, like his chicks, are hatched from eggs, he thought that it was not entirely noble to exterminate them. But his wife was smarter. She knew that every egg of a cobra is the same cobra, and therefore she immediately flew out of the nest, and left Darzi at home: let her warm the babies and bawl her songs about the death of Naga. Darzi was in many ways like any other man.
Arriving at the garbage heap, she began to fidget a few steps from Nagini and at the same time shouted loudly:
- Oh, my wing is broken! The boy who lives in the house threw a stone at me and broke my wing!
And she flapped her wings even more desperately. Nagini raised her head and hissed:
“Did you let Rikki-tikki know that I wanted to sting him?” You chose a bad place to limp!
And she glided over the dusty ground to Darzi's wife.
- The boy interrupted him with a stone! Darzi's wife continued to shout.
“Okay, maybe you'll be pleased to know that when you're dead, I'll deal with this boy in my own way. Today, since dawn, my husband has been lying on this garbage heap, but even before sunset, the boy living in the house will also lie very still ... But where are you going? Are you thinking of running away? You won't leave me anyway. Stupid, look at me!
But Darzi's wife knew very well that she should not do this, because as soon as any bird looked into the eyes of a snake, tetanus attacked the bird with fright and she could not move. Darzi's wife rushed away, squeaking plaintively and flapping her wings helplessly. She never fluttered above the ground, and Nagini rushed after her faster and faster.
Rikki-tikki heard them running from the stable along the garden path, and he rushed to the melon patch, to the edge that was right next to the fence. There, in the swollen earth that covers the melons, he found twenty-five snake eggs, very skillfully hidden, each as large as a bantam egg (a chicken of a small breed. - Ed.), only instead of a shell they are covered with a whitish peel.
One more day and it would be too late! - said Rikki-tikki, as he saw that inside the peel lay, curled up, tiny cobras.
He knew that from the minute they hatched from the egg, each could kill a man and a mongoose. He began quickly, quickly biting the tops of the eggs, grabbing the heads of the serpents, and at the same time did not forget to dig up the ridge here and there, so as not to let any egg go unnoticed.
There were only three eggs left, and Rikki-tikki was already giggling with joy when Darzi's wife shouted to him:
- Rikki-tikki, I lured Nagini to the house, and Nagini crawled onto the veranda! Oh, hurry, hurry! She's plotting murder!
Rikki-tikki bit into two more eggs, and the third took in his teeth and rushed to the veranda.
Teddy and his mother and father were sitting on the veranda at breakfast. But Rikki-tikki noticed that they didn't eat anything. They sat as still as stone, and their faces were white. And on the mat near Teddy's chair, Nagini writhed in rings. She crawled so close that she could sting Teddy's bare leg at any time. Swinging in different directions, she sang a victory song.
“Son of the Big Man who killed the Naga,” she hissed, “wait a little, sit still and don't move. I'm not ready yet. And all three of you sit quietly. If you move, I will sting him. If you don't move, I'll sting too. O foolish people who killed the Naga.
Teddy fixed his eyes on his father, and his father could only whisper:
“Sit down and don't move, Teddy. Sit down and don't move! Then Rikki-tikki ran up and shouted:
- Turn to me, Nagini, turn and let's fight!
- All in good time! she answered without looking at Rikki-tikki. - I'll get even with you later. In the meantime, look at your dear friends. How quiet they are and what white faces they have. They were frightened, they dare not move. And if you take one step, I'll sting.
“Look at your kites,” said Rikki-tikki, “there, by the fence, on the melon ridge.” Go and see what has become of them.
The snake looked sideways and saw an egg on the veranda.
- ABOUT! Give it to me! she screamed.
Rikki-tikki put an egg between his front paws, and his eyes turned red as blood.
“And what is the ransom for the snake egg?” For a little cobra? For the cobra princess? For the very, very last of the kind? The rest are already being devoured by ants on the melon bed.
Nagini turned to Rikki-tikki. The egg made her forget everything, and Rikki-tikki saw Teddin's father reach out with a big hand, grab Teddy by the shoulder and drag him across the teacup-lined table to a place where the snake couldn't reach him.
- Deceived! Deceived! Deceived! Rikk-chk-chk! Rikki-tikki teased her. - The boy remained intact - and I, I, I grabbed your Naga by the scruff tonight ... there, in the bathroom ... yes!
Then he began to jump up and down with all four paws at once, folding them into one bundle and pressing his head to the floor.
“Nag swung me in all directions, but he couldn’t shake me off!” He was already lifeless when the Big Man split him in two with a stick. I killed him, Rikki-tikki-chk-chk! Come out, Nagini! Come out and fight me. You won't be a widow for long!
Nagini saw that she could no longer kill Teddy, and Rikki-Tikki had an egg between her paws.
“Give me the egg, Rikki-tikki!” Give me my last egg and I'll go and never come back,” she said, lowering her hood.
- Yes, you will leave and never return, Nagini, because you will soon lie next to your Nag on a garbage heap. Rather fight with me! Big Man has already gone for the gun. Fight with me, Nagini!
Rikki-tikki hovered around Nagini at such a distance that she could not touch him, and his small eyes were like hot coals.
Nagini curled up into a ball and with all her strength flew at him. And he jumped up and back. Again, and again, and again her attacks were repeated, and each time her head slammed against the mat, and she coiled again like a clock spring. Rikki-tikki danced in a circle, wanting to go around her from behind, but Nagini turned every time to meet him face to face, and that's why her tail rustled on the mat, like dry leaves driven by the wind.
He forgot about the egg. It still lay on the veranda, and Nagini crept closer and closer to him. And finally, when Ricky stopped to catch his breath, she picked up the egg and slid down the steps of the porch, rushing like an arrow along the path. Rikki-tikki - behind her. When a cobra flees from death, it makes such twists as a whip, which is used to whip a horse's neck.
Rikki-tikki knew that he had to catch up with her, otherwise all the troubles would start again. She rushed to the thorn bush to flicker into the thick grass, and Rikki-tikki, running, heard that Darzee was still singing his stupid song of victory. But Darzi's wife was smarter than him. She flew out of the nest and flapped her wings over Nagini's head. If Darzi had flown to her aid, they might have forced the cobra to swerve. Now Nagini only slightly lowered her hood and continued to crawl straight ahead. But this slight hitch brought Rikki-tikki closer to her. When she darted into the hole where she and Nag lived, Ricky's white teeth grabbed her tail, and Ricky squeezed in after her, and, really, not every mongoose, even the smartest and oldest, will decide to follow the cobra into the hole. It was dark in the hole, and Rikki-tikki could not guess where it would expand so much that Nagini would turn around and sting him. Therefore, he fiercely dug into her tail and, acting with his paws as brakes, with all his might rested on the sloping, wet, warm earth.
Soon the grass stopped swaying at the entrance to the hole, and Darzi said:
- Missing Rikki-tikki! We must sing his funeral song. Fearless Rikki-tikki died. Nagini will kill him in his dungeon, there is no doubt about that.
And he sang a very sad song, which he composed at the same moment, but as soon as he reached the saddest place, the grass above the hole stirred again, and from there, covered with mud, climbed out, licking his mustache, Rikki-tikki. Darzi cried out softly and stopped his song.
Rikki-tikki shook off the dust and sneezed.
“It's all over,” he said. “The widow will never come out of there again.
And the red ants that live between the stalks of grass immediately began to descend into the hole one after another to find out if he was telling the truth.
Rikki-tikki curled up in a ball and immediately, in the grass, without leaving his place, fell asleep - and slept, and slept, and slept until evening, because his work was not easy that day.
And when he awoke from his sleep, he said:
“Now I will go home. You, Darzi, inform the blacksmith, and he will inform the whole garden that Nagini has already died.
The blacksmith is a bird. The sounds it makes are just like hammer blows on a copper basin. This is because she serves as herald in every Indian garden and brings news to anyone who wishes to listen to her.
As he walked along the garden path, Rikki-tikki heard her first trill, like the sound of a tiny dinner gong. It meant: "Shut up and listen!" And then loudly and firmly:
“Ding dong tok!” Nag is dead! Dong! Nagini is dead! Ding dong tok!
And immediately all the birds in the garden sang and all the frogs croaked, because Nag and Nagaina ate both birds and frogs.
When Ricky approached the house, Teddy and Teddin's mother (she was still very pale) and Teddin's father rushed to meet him and almost cried. This time he ate well, and when it was time for bed he sat on Teddy's shoulder and went to bed with the boy. There his mother saw Teddin, having come to visit her son late in the evening.
“This is our savior,” she said to her husband. “Just think: he saved Teddy and you and me.
Rikki-tikki immediately woke up and even jumped, because mongoose sleep is very sensitive.
- Oh, it's you! - he said. “What else do you need to worry about: not a single cobra is left alive, and if they were, I’m here.
Rikki-tikki had the right to be proud of himself. But still he did not put on too much air and, like a true mongoose, guarded this garden with a tooth, and a claw, and a leap, and a swoop, so that not a single cobra dared to poke his head here through the fence.
PRAISE SONG,
which the little tailor Darzi sang to the glory of Rikki-tikki-tavi
- I live a double life:
I sing songs in the sky
Here on earth I am a tailor -
I sew a house of leaves.
Here on earth, in heaven above earth
I twist, and sew, and sing!
Rejoice, tender mother:
In the battle, the killer is killed.
Sing over the chicks again:
The enemy is buried in the grave.
An evil bloodsucker lurking in roses
Caught, killed and buried!
Who is he who delivered us?
Reveal his name to me.
Ricky - sparkling eye
Tikki is a fearless hero.
Rik-tikki-tikki, our great hero,
Our fire-eyed hero!
Tail in front of the hero scatter.
Raise the trill to heaven.
Sing to him, sing, nightingale!
No, I'll sing to him myself.
I sing glory to the great Ricky,
His bold claws, his white fangs
And fiery red eyes!
(The song ends here because Rikki-tikki-tavi prevented the singer from continuing.)
Kipling Rudyard
Rikki-tikki-tavi
Joseph Rudyard Kipling
Rikki-tikki-tavi
This is a story about a great war that Rikki-Tikki-Tavi fought alone in the bathroom of a large house in the village of Sigauli.
Darzi, the tailor bird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the musky rat (muskrat, found mainly in North America. - Ed.) - the one that never runs out into the middle of the room, but always sneaks up to the very wall - gave him advice . But he really fought alone.
Rikki-Tiki-Tavi was a mongoose (a small predatory animal with an elongated flexible body and short legs, found in tropical countries. - Ed.). His tail and fur were like those of a small cat, and his head and all his habits were like those of a weasel. His eyes were pink, and the tip of his restless nose was also pink. Ricky could scratch himself wherever he pleased, no matter what paw: front or back. And he knew how to fluff his tail so that the tail looked like a round long brush. And his battle cry as he raced through the tall grasses was rikki-tikki-tikki-tikki-chk!
He lived with his father and mother in a narrow hollow. But one summer there was a flood, and the water carried him along the roadside ditch. He kicked and thrashed as best he could. Finally he managed to grab hold of a floating tuft of grass, and so he held on until he lost consciousness. He woke up in the hot sun in the garden, in the middle of the path, tormented and dirty, and at that time some boy said:
Dead mongoose! Let's have a funeral!
No, - said the boy's mother, - let's take him and dry him. Maybe he's still alive.
They carried him into the house, and some big man took him with two fingers and said that he was not dead at all, but only drowned in the water. Then they wrapped him in cotton wool and began to warm him by the fire. He opened his eyes and sneezed.
Now, said the Big Man, don't scare him, and we'll see what he does.
There is nothing more difficult in the world than to frighten a mongoose, because he is burning with curiosity from nose to tail. "Run Find out and Smell" - inscribed on the mongoose family crest, and Rikki-Tikki was a purebred mongoose, he peered into the cotton, realized that it was not fit for food, ran around the table, sat on his hind legs, put his fur in order and jumped on the boy's shoulder.
Don't be afraid, Teddy, said the Big Man. - He wants to be friends with you.
Aw, he tickles my neck! cried Teddy.
Rikki-tikki looked behind his collar, sniffed his ear and, going down to the floor, began to rub his nose.
Here are miracles! said Teddin's mother. - And it's called a wild animal! It's true, he's so tame because we've been kind to him.
Mongooses are all like that,” her husband said. - If Teddy does not pick him up from the floor by the tail and does not take it into his head to put him in a cage, he will live with us and will run around the house ... Let's give him something to eat.
He was given a small piece of raw meat. He really liked meat. After breakfast, he immediately ran to the veranda, sat down in the sun and fluffed out his fur to dry it to the very roots. And immediately he felt better.
"There are many things in this house that I must scout out as soon as possible. My parents never happened to scout so much in their entire life. I'll stay here and scout everything as it is."
All that day he did nothing but roam the house. He almost drowned in the bath, he stuck his nose in the ink, and immediately after that he burned his nose on the cigar that the Big Man was smoking, because he climbed on his knees to the Big Man to watch how they write with pen on paper. In the evening he ran into Teddin's bedroom to see how the kerosene lamps were lit. And when Teddy went to bed, Rikki-tikki crouched down beside him, but turned out to be a restless neighbor, because at every rustle he jumped up and alerted and ran to find out what was the matter. Father and mother went before going to bed to check on their sleeping son and saw that Rikki-tikki was not sleeping, but was sitting on his pillow.
I don't like it, - said Teddin's mother. - What if he bites the child?
Don't be afraid, said the father. - This little animal will protect him better than any dog. If, for example, a snake crawls in...
But Teddin's mother did not want to think about such horrors. By morning breakfast, Ricky rode onto the veranda astride Teddin's shoulder. He was given a banana and a piece of egg. He was on everyone's knees, because a good mongoose never loses hope of becoming a pet mongoose. Each of them from childhood dreams that he will live in a human house and run from room to room.
After breakfast, Rikki-tikki ran out into the garden to see if there was anything remarkable there. The garden was large, only half cleared. Huge roses grew in it - each bush was like an arbor - and bamboo groves, and orange trees, and lemon trees, and dense thickets of tall grass. Rikki-tikki even licked his lips.
Nice place for hunting! - he said.
And as soon as he thought about hunting, his tail swelled up like a round brush. He quickly ran around the whole neighborhood, sniffed here, sniffed there, and suddenly someone's sad voices reached him from the thorn bush. There, in the thorn bush, lived Darzi, the tailor bird, and his wife. They had a beautiful nest: they sewed it from two huge leaves with thin fibrous twigs and stuffed it with soft down and cotton. The nest swayed in all directions, and they sat on the edge and cried loudly.
What's happened? asked Rikki-tikki.
Big misfortune! Darzi replied. - One of our chicks fell out of the nest yesterday, and Nag swallowed it.
Hm, - said Rikki-tikki, - it's very sad... But I'm here recently... I'm not from here... Who is Nag?
Darzi and his wife darted into the nest and did not answer, because from the thick grass, from under the bush, a low hiss was heard - a terrible, cold sound that made Rikki-tikki jump back a full two feet. Then, from the grass, higher and higher, an inch by inch, the head of Nag, a huge black cobra (poisonous spectacled snake; behind, slightly below the head, it has a pattern resembling glasses. - Ed.), began to rise - and there was this Nag of five feet in length from head to tail.
When a third of his body rose above the ground, he stopped and began to sway like a dandelion in the wind, and looked at Rikki-tikki with his evil snake eyes, which always remain the same, no matter what Nag thinks about.
Who is Nag, you ask? Look at me and shiver! Because Nag is me...
And he inflated his hood (when the cobra is angry, it puffs up its neck so that it looks like a hood. - Ed.), And Rikki-tikki saw a spectacle mark on the hood, exactly like a steel loop from a steel hook.
