(_At thy pleasure, Nag._)
Turn for turn and twist for twist
(_Run and hide thee, Nag._)
Hah! The hooded Death has missed!
(_Woe betide thee, Nag!_)
This is the story of the great war that Rikki-tikki-tavi fought
single-handed, through the bath-rooms of the big bungalow in Segowlee
cantonment. Darzee, the Tailorbird, helped him, and Chuchundra, the
muskrat, who never comes out into the middle of the floor, but always
creeps round by the wall, gave him advice, but Rikki-tikki did the real
fighting.
He was a mongoose, rather like a little cat in his fur and his tail, but
quite like a weasel in his head and his habits. His eyes and the end
of his restless nose were pink. He could scratch himself anywhere he
pleased with any leg, front or back, that he chose to use. He could
fluff up his tail till it looked like a bottle brush, and his war cry as
he scuttled through the long grass was: Rikk-tikk-tikki-tikki-tchk!
One day, a high summer flood washed him out of the burrow where he lived
with his father and mother, and carried him, kicking and clucking, down
a roadside ditch. He found a little wisp of grass floating there, and
clung to it till he lost his senses. When he revived, he was lying in
the hot sun on the middle of a garden path, very draggled indeed, and a
small boy was saying, Here s a dead mongoose. Let s have a funeral.
No, said his mother, let s take him in and dry him. Perhaps he isn t
really dead.
They took him into the house, and a big man picked him up between his
finger and thumb and said he was not dead but half choked. So they
wrapped him in cotton wool, and warmed him over a little fire, and he
opened his eyes and sneezed.
Now, said the big man (he was an Englishman who had just moved into
the bungalow), don t frighten him, and we ll see what he ll do.
It is the hardest thing in the world to frighten a mongoose, because
he is eaten up from nose to tail with curiosity. The motto of all
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