e was a feather-brained little fellow who could never hold more
than one idea at a time in his head. And just because he knew that
Nagaina's children were born in eggs like his own, he didn't think at
first that it was fair to kill them. But his wife was a sensible bird,
and she knew that cobra's eggs meant young cobras later on. So she flew
off from the nest, and left Darzee to keep the babies warm, and continue
his song about the death of Nag. Darzee was very like a man in some
ways.

She fluttered in front of Nagaina by the rubbish heap and cried out,
"Oh, my wing is broken! The boy in the house threw a stone at me and
broke it." Then she fluttered more desperately than ever.

Nagaina lifted up her head and hissed, "You warned Rikki-tikki when I
would have killed him. Indeed and truly, you've chosen a bad place to
be lame in." And she moved toward Darzee's wife, slipping along over the
dust.

"The boy broke it with a stone!" shrieked Darzee's wife.

"Well! It may be some consolation to you when you're dead to know that I
shall settle accounts with the boy. My husband lies on the rubbish heap
this morning, but before night the boy in the house will lie very still.
What is the use of running away? I am sure to catch you. Little fool,
look at me!"

Darzee's wife knew better than to do that, for a bird who looks at a
snake's eyes gets so frightened that she cannot move. Darzee's wife
fluttered on, piping sorrowfully, and never leaving the ground, and
Nagaina quickened her pace.

Rikki-tikki heard them going up the path from the stables, and he raced
for the end of the melon patch near the wall. There, in the warm litter
above the melons, very cunningly hidden, he found twenty-five eggs,
about the size of a bantam's eggs, but with whitish skin instead of
shell.

"I was not a day too soon," he said, for he could see the baby cobras
curled up inside the skin, and he knew that the minute they were hatched
they could each kill a man or a mongoose. He bit off the tops of the
eggs as fast as he could, taking care to crush the young cobras, and
turned over the litter from time to time to see whether he had missed
any. At last there were only three eggs left, and Rikki-tikki began to
chuckle to himself, when he heard Darzee's wife screaming:

"Rikki-tikki, I led Nagaina toward the house, and she has gone into the
veranda, and--oh, come quickly--she means killing!"

Rikki-tikki smashed two eggs, and tumbled backward dow