Page 97 - Lavender-B-7

Rikki-tikki heard them going up the path
The boy
broke it from the stables, and he raced for the end of
with a the melon patch near the wall. There, in the
stone! 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.

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!

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 down the melon-bed with the third
egg in his mouth, and scuttled to the veranda as
bantam: small variety of fowl hard as he could put foot to the ground.

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