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 hard as he could put foot to the ground.
"Look at your eggs," said Rikki-tikki, "in the melon bed near the wall.
Early in the morning Rikki-tikki came to early breakfast in the veranda riding on Teddy's shoulder, and they gave him banana and some boiled egg. He sat on all their laps one after the other, because every well-brought-up mongoose always hopes to be a house mongoose some day and have rooms to run about in; and Rikki-tikki's mother (she used to live in the general's house at Segowlee) had carefully told Rikki what to do if ever he came across white men.
The big snake turned half around, and saw the egg on the veranda.
Rikki-tikki put his paws one on each side of the egg, and his eyes were blood-red.
Nagaina spun clear round, forgetting everything for the sake of the one egg. 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 tea-cups, safe and out of reach of Nagaina.
Nagaina saw that she had lost her chance of killing Teddy, and the egg lay between Rikki-tikki's paws.
At the same moment the bird fluttered down upon the hat and once more sat snugly on her
eggs. She drifted in one direction, and he was borne off in another, both cheering.
Perhaps Paraguay offers the most curious instance of this; for here neither cattle nor horses nor dogs have ever run wild, though they swarm southward and northward in a feral state; and Azara and Rengger have shown that this is caused by the greater number in Paraguay of a certain fly, which lays its
eggs in the navels of these animals when first born.
But in place of the white and the yolk of the
egg, a little yellow Chick, fluffy and gay and smiling, escaped from it.