' said Rikki-tikki, 'that is very sad--but I am a stranger here.
Who is Nag?'

Darzee and his wife only cowered down in the nest without answering,
for from the thick grass at the foot of the bush there came a low
hiss--a horrid cold sound that made Rikki-tikki jump back two clear
feet. Then inch by inch out of the grass rose up the head and spread
hood of Nag, the big black cobra, and he was five feet long from
tongue to tail. When he had lifted one-third of himself clear of the
ground, he stayed balancing to and fro exactly as a dandelion-tuft
balances in the wind, and he looked at Rikki-tikki with the wicked
snake's eyes that never change their expression, whatever the snake
may be thinking of.

'Who is Nag?' said he. '_I_ am Nag. The great god Brahm put his mark
upon all our people when the first cobra spread his hood to keep the
sun off Brahm as he slept. Look, and be afraid!'

He spread out his hood more than ever, and Rikki-tikki saw the
spectacle-mark on the back of it that looks exactly like the eye part
of a hook-and-eye fastening. He was afraid for the minute; but it is
impossible for a mongoose to stay frightened for any length of time,
and though Rikki-tikki had never met a live cobra before, his mother
had fed him on dead ones, and he knew that all a grown mongoose's
business in life was to fight and eat snakes. Nag knew that too, and
at the bottom of his cold heart he was afraid.

'Well,' said Rikki-tikki, and his tail began to fluff up again,
'marks or no marks, do you think it is right for you to eat
fledglings out of a nest?'

Nag was thinking to himself, and watching the least little movement
in the grass behind Rikki-tikki. He knew that mongooses in the garden
meant death sooner or later for him and his family, but he wanted to
get Rikki-tikki off his guard. So he dropped his head a little, and
put it on one side.

'Let us talk,' he said. 'You eat eggs. Why should not I eat birds?'

'Behind you! Look behind you!' sang Darzee.

Rikki-tikki knew better than to waste time in staring. He jumped up
in the air as high as he could go, and just under him whizzed by the
head of Nagaina, Nag's wicked wife. She had crept up behind him as he
was talking, to make an end of him; and he heard her savage hiss as
the stroke missed. He came down almost across her back, and if he had
been an old mongoose he would have known that then was the time to
break her back with one bite; but he was afraid of the terri