Rikki Tikki Tavi: a summary - RIKKI TIKKI TAVI: A SUMMARY
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Nagaina attacks.
“Son of the big man that killed Nag,” she hissed, “stay still. I am not ready yet. Wait a little. Keep very still, all you three. If you move I strike, and if you do not move I strike. Oh, foolish people, who killed my Nag!”
Teddy’s eyes were fixed on his father, and all his father could do was to whisper, “Sit still, Teddy. You mustn’t move. Teddy, keep still.”
Then Rikki-tikki came up and cried: “Turn round Nagaina; turn and fight!”
“All in good time,” said she, without moving her eyes. “I will settle my account with you presently. Look at your friends, Rikki-tikki. They are still and white; they are afraid. They dare not move, and if you come a step nearer I strike.”
“Look at your eggs,” said Rikki-tikki, “in the melon-bed near the wall. Go and look, Nagaina.”
The big snake turned half round, and saw the egg on the verandah. “Ah-h! Give it to me,” she said.
Rikki-tikki put his paws one on each side of the egg, and his eyes were blood-red. “What price for a snake’s egg? For a young cobra? For a young king-cobra? For the last — the very last of the brood? The ants are eating all the others down by the melon-bed.”
Nagaina spun clear round, forgetting everything for the sake of the one egg; and Rikki-tikki saw Teddy’s father shoot out a big hand, catch Teddy by the shoulder, and drag him across the little table with the teacups, safe and out of reach of Nagaina.
Rikki Tikki then began to taunt Nagaina, for having let slip the boy, and also tried to make her go crazy and fiaccarla in moral shouting in his face that he had been the ‘killer Nag, and like’ had killed.
Rikki-tikki-tchk-tchk! Come then, Nagaina, Come and fight with me. You shall not be a widow long.”
Nagaina saw that she had lost her chance of killing Teddy, and the egg lay between Rikki-tikki’s paws. “Give me the egg, Rikki-tikki. Give me the last of my eggs, and I will go away and never come back,” she said, lowering her hood.
Rikki kills Nagaina.
“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!”
The deadly struggle began. Rikki Tikki turned around Nagaina, tenendoi just out of reach of his enthusiasm, his little eyes like hot coals. Many times Nagaina gathered about herself and threw herself at him, and every time Rikki Tikk dodged the fatal blow. But Rikki had forgotten the u or v, who was still on the veranda, and Nagaina closer and closer to it, until she took him in her mouth, turned to the veranda steps, and flew like an arrow down the path, with Rikki-tikki behind her. Rikki Tikki knew he had to capture it, or all of the problems would be restarted. The wife of Darzee flew away from her nest as Nagaina passed, and flapped his wings on his head. That ‘moment of delay allowed Rikki Tikki to reach it, and as he slipped the mouse hole, where she and Nag had made their lair, his white teeth clenched on the tail of Nagaina. Rikki did not give up, and he was dragged down the slope of dark damp earth and warm.
Then the grass by the mouth of the hole stopped waving, and Darzee said: “It is all over with Rikki-tikki! We must sing his death song. Valiant Rikki-tikki is dead! For Nagaina will surely kill him underground.”
So he sang a very mournful song that he made up on the spur of the minute, and just as he got to the most touching part the grass quivered again, and Rikki-tikki, covered with dirt, dragged himself out of the hole leg by leg, licking his whiskers. Darzee stopped with a little shout. Rikki-tikki shook some of the dust out of his fur and sneezed. “It is all over,” he said. “The widow will never come out again.” And the red ants that live between the grass stems heard him, and began to troop down one after another to see if he had spoken the truth.
Rikki Tikki curled up on the grass and slept where he was, and slept for a long time. Rikki Tikki when he reached home, Teddy and his mother and his father went to meet him, they made him a great feast and almost wept over him.
Dinner that evening was a great dinner for Rikki, who then went to sleep with Teddy. Late at night the father and mother of Teddy went to his room.
“He saved our lives and Teddy’s life,” she said to her husband. “Just think, he saved all our lives!”
Rikki-tikki woke up with a jump, for all the mongooses are light sleepers.
“Oh, it’s you,” said he. “What are you bothering for? All the cobras are dead; and if they weren’t, I’m here.”
Rikki-tikki had a right to be proud of himself; but he did not grow too proud, and he kept that garden as a mongoose should keep it, with tooth and jump and spring and bit, till never a cobra dared show its head inside the walls.
Darzee’s Chaunt.
(Sung in honour of Rikki-tikki-tavi)
Singer and tailor am I — Doubled the joys that I know — Proud of my lilt through the sky, Proud of the house that I sew — Over and under, so weave I my music — so weave I the house that I sew.
Sing to your fledglings again, Mother, oh lift up your head! Evil that plagued us is slain, Death in the garden lies dead. Terror that hid in the roses is impotent — flung on the dung-hill and dead!
Who hath delivered us, who? Tell me his nest and his name. Rikki, the valiant, the true, Tikki, with eyeballs of flame, Rik-tikki-tikki, the ivory-fanged, the hunger with eye- balls of flame.
Give him the Thanks of the birds, Bowing with tail-feathers spread! Praise him with nightingale-words — Nay, I will praise him instead. Hear! I will sing you the praise of the bottle-tailed Rikki, with eyeballs of red!
(Here Rikki-tikki interrupted, and the rest of the song is lost.)
A final comment, and a council.
Rikki Tikki fight to the death before Karait with small but dangerous, then with Nag, huge and strong, and finally with the wicked and fearsome Nagaina, and always wins.
Kipling describes with great precision and mastery of the strategy to fight the small mongoose against stronger opponents and older than her, and explicitly tells us that “the victory was only a matter of quickness of eye and legs – the burst of the cobra against the jump the mongoose. ”
But Rikki also wins for other factors, less explicit but present throughout the story, namely, the tactical strategic Rikki, his intelligence, information gathering and knowledge of the terrain, the decision, the stubbornness, the ‘pride of her race, the teachings received, his loyalty and his love andattachment to the hosts, the bungalow (which he considers his second home), and especially Teddy. Rikki Tikki acts and thinks like a man, and often better, acts and thinks like a man brave but not foolhardy, which faces the fight although sometimes fear, which relies on its intelligence and never despairs.
If I compare this natural history, beautiful and believable to the amazing and unreal stories propinateci from fiction and cinema of today, honestly propose again to my grandchildren these stories in my time, much more beautiful and education and training.
In this summary, I have a lot of space reserved to the original text, for obvious reasons, the rest, I did my best. Aware, however, of the ‘inadequacy of my effort than what the story is worth, I apologize to the readers, pointing to fine this nice video: RIKKI TIKKI TAVI.
