Rikki-tikki with the white teeth.'

'Bother my white teeth! Have you ever heard where she keeps her
eggs?'

'In the melon-bed, on the end nearest the wall, where the sun strikes
nearly all day. She hid them three weeks ago.'

'And you never thought it worth while to tell me? The end nearest the
wall, you said?'

'Rikki-tikki, you are not going to eat her eggs?'

'Not eat exactly; no. Darzee, if you have a grain of sense you will
fly off to the stables and pretend that your wing is broken, and let
Nagaina chase you away to this bush! I must get to the melon-bed, and
if I went there now she'd see me.'

Darzee 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.