ble
lashing return-stroke of the cobra. He bit, indeed, but did not bite
long enough, and he jumped clear of the whisking tail, leaving
Nagaina torn and angry.

'Wicked, wicked Darzee!' said Nag, lashing up as high as he could
reach toward the nest in the thorn-bush; but Darzee had built it out
of reach of snakes, and it only swayed to and fro.

Rikki-tikki felt his eyes growing red and hot (when a mongoose's eyes
grow red, he is angry), and he sat back on his tail and hind legs
like a little kangaroo, and looked all round him, and chattered with
rage. But Nag and Nagaina had disappeared into the grass. When a
snake misses its stroke, it never says anything or gives any sign of
what it means to do next. Rikki-tikki did not care to follow them,
for he did not feel sure that he could manage two snakes at once. So
he trotted off to the gravel path near the house, and sat down to
think. It was a serious matter for him.

If you read the old books of natural history, you will find they say
that when the mongoose fights the snake and happens to get bitten, he
runs off and eats some herb that cures him. That is not true. The
victory is only a matter of quickness of eye and quickness of
foot,--snake's blow against mongoose's jump,--and as no eye can
follow the motion of a snake's head when it strikes, that makes
things much more wonderful than any magic herb. Rikki-tikki knew he
was a young mongoose, and it made him all the more pleased to think
that he had managed to escape a blow from behind. It gave him
confidence in himself, and when Teddy came running down the path,
Rikki-tikki was ready to be petted.

But just as Teddy was stooping, something flinched a little in the
dust, and a tiny voice said: 'Be careful. I am death!' It was Karait,
the dusty brown snakeling that lies for choice on the dusty earth;
and his bite is as dangerous as the cobra's. But he is so small that
nobody thinks of him, and so he does the more harm to people.

Rikki-tikki's eyes grew red again, and he danced up to Karait with
the peculiar rocking, swaying motion that he had inherited from his
family. It looks very funny, but it is so perfectly balanced a gait
that you can fly off from it at any angle you please; and in dealing
with snakes this is an advantage. If Rikki-tikki had only known, he
was doing a much more dangerous thing than fighting Nag, for Karait
is so small, and can turn so quickly, that unless Rikki bit him close
to the back of t