Rikki-Tikki-Tavi is the dynamo of a mongoose that comes to the rescue of an English family living in India in Rudyard Kipling's classic children's story. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi first saves little Teddy and then the boy's mother and father before being adopted as the family's heroic pet.
After avoiding a two-to-one dual with the deadly black cobras, Nag and Nagaina, Rikki first fights and kills Karait, a "dusty brown snakeling," who was just about to strike--and probably kill--Teddy. Rikki's bite paralyzed Karait, but the young mongoose decided not to eat him because "a full meal makes a slow mongoose." Rikki next fought Nag, and he probably would have killed the cobra but Teddy's father blasted him with a double-barreled shotgun first. Lastly, Rikki smashed Nagaina's eggs so no more cobras would be born to bother his new family. Then, Rikki went into Nagaina's own underground nest to kill the last of the cobras.
Since the cobra bite is deadly, Rikki could have been killed by either Nag or Nagaina, and even the bite of the smaller Karait would have finishd Rikki had he not been the smarter and quicker animal. Rikki
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.
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