she said, lowering her hood.

'Yes, you will go away, and you will never come back; for you will
go to the rubbish-heap with Nag. Fight, widow! The big man has gone
for his gun! Fight!'

Rikki-tikki was bounding all round Nagaina, keeping just out of
reach of her stroke, his little eyes like hot coals. Nagaina
gathered herself together, and flung out at him. Rikki-tikki jumped
up and backward. Again and again and again she struck, and each time
her head came with a whack on the matting of the verandah, and she
gathered herself together like a watch-spring. Then Rikki-tikki
danced in a circle to get behind her, and Nagaina spun round to keep
her head to his head, so that the rustle of her tail on the matting
sounded like dry leaves blown along by the wind.

He had forgotten the egg. It still lay on the verandah, and Nagaina
came nearer and nearer to it, till at last, while Rikki-tikki was
drawing breath, she caught it in her mouth, turned to the verandah
steps and flew like an arrow down the path, with Rikki-tikki behind
her. When the cobra runs for her life, she goes like a whip-lash
flicked across a horse's neck.

Rikki-tikki knew that he must catch her, or all the trouble would
begin again. She headed straight for the long grass by the
thorn-bush, and as he was running Rikki-tikki heard Darzee still
singing his foolish little song of triumph. But Darzee's wife was
wiser. She flew off her nest as Nagaina came along and flapped her
wings about Nagaina's head. If Darzee had helped they might have
turned her; but Nagaina only lowered her hood and went on. Still, the