dead! Ding-dong-tock!” That set all the birds in the garden singing, and the frogs croaking; for Nag and Nagaina used to eat frogs as well as little birds.

When Rikki got to the house, Teddy and Teddy’s mother (she still looked very white, for she had been fainting) and Teddy’s father came out and almost cried over him; and that night he ate all that was given him till he could eat no more, and went to bed on Teddy’s shoulder, where Teddy’s mother saw him when she came to look late at night.

“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 bite, till never a cobra dared show its head inside the walls.