Rikki-Tikki-Tavi's killing of Nagaina is the final movement of the mongoose's defense of Teddy's household and garden. The act begins as a rescue under extreme pressure: Nagaina has trapped Teddy and his parents on the veranda, while the last surviving cobra egg gives Rikki-Tikki-Tavi both a weapon and a desperate reason to pursue Nagaina into her underground refuge. When he emerges alive and declares that the widow will never return, the household and the garden are released from the threat that had governed them.

Causes and Background

Nagaina's attack is driven by revenge for Nag's death. She tells Teddy's family that the man of the house killed Nag and announces that the boy will pay for it, treating the motionless family as helpless victims. She coils beside Teddy's chair, close enough to strike his bare leg, while Teddy, his mother, and his father sit still and white with fear. Her repeated threat that movement will bring an attack turns the veranda into a suspended crisis: the family cannot escape, and Rikki-Tikki-Tavi cannot simply rush forward without exposing them.

The danger extends beyond the adults' immediate confrontation with Nagaina. Near the wall, in the warm litter above the melons, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi finds twenty-five cobra eggs, each about the size of a bantam's egg and covered by whitish skin rather than a shell. He can see the baby cobras curled inside, and understands that each could kill a man or a mongoose as soon as it hatched. The eggs therefore transform Nagaina's survival into a continuing threat. Killing the adult snake without dealing with the brood would leave the household facing the same danger again.

The Veranda Confrontation

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi destroys the eggs as quickly as possible, crushing the young cobras and repeatedly turning over the litter to make sure none has been missed. When Darzee's wife warns that Nagaina has gone to the veranda intending to kill, he smashes two more eggs and carries the third in his mouth. He races toward the house while Teddy and his parents remain frozen at breakfast, unable to eat or move under Nagaina's control of the scene.

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi challenges Nagaina directly and then uses the surviving egg to break her concentration. He tells her to look toward the melon bed, where the ants are eating the other eggs, and places the last egg between his paws. The egg is not merely bait: it is the last material remnant of Nagaina's future power. When Nagaina turns toward it, Teddy's father seizes Teddy by the shoulder and drags him across the small table, carrying him out of the snake's striking range. The rescue therefore occurs through a narrow opening created by Rikki-Tikki-Tavi's deception rather than by force alone.

The confrontation becomes a contest of speed and attention. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi circles just beyond Nagaina's reach while she strikes repeatedly, each blow landing against the veranda matting. He moves behind her, forcing her to turn and keep her head facing him, but in the movement he forgets the egg. Nagaina reaches it, seizes it in her mouth, and bolts down the path. The contest consequently changes from a controlled defense on the veranda to a pursuit across the garden.

Pursuit into the Rat-Hole

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi knows that he must catch Nagaina or the danger will begin again. She heads for the long grass and the thorn-bush, then plunges into the rat-hole where she and Nag once lived. Darzee's wife delays her briefly by flapping around her head, though Nagaina lowers her hood and continues. That instant is enough for Rikki-Tikki-Tavi to seize Nagaina's tail with his teeth as she enters the hole.

Following a cobra underground is an act of exceptional risk. In the dark, hot, moist passage, Rikki-Tikki-Tavi cannot know when the tunnel will widen enough for Nagaina to turn and strike. He holds on savagely and braces his feet against the slope as brakes. The image reverses the apparent advantage of the larger predator: underground, where Nagaina might have possessed the decisive space, the mongoose's grip and refusal to release become the essential means of survival.

The grass at the hole's mouth stops moving, and Darzee assumes that Nagaina has killed Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. He begins a death song for the mongoose. The apparent defeat lasts only until the grass quivers again. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi drags himself out leg by leg, covered with dirt, licking his whiskers and sneezing dust from his fur. He reports that the work is over and that Nagaina will never come out again. The narration does not describe the killing inside the hole directly; its certainty comes through the survivor's emergence and the disappearance of the cobra.

Consequences and Aftermath

Rikki-Tikki-Tavi sleeps in the grass until late afternoon after the struggle. His exhaustion registers the cost of the victory: the event is not an effortless triumph but a hard day's work that has taken him from the eggs, across the veranda, down the garden path, and into the rat-hole. On waking, he plans to return to the house and asks Darzee to tell the Coppersmith what has happened.

The Coppersmith functions as the garden's public messenger. Its hammer-like calls spread the news from garden to garden, announcing that Nag is dead and Nagaina is dead. The report triggers a collective release: the birds sing and the frogs croak, animals that had been vulnerable because Nag and Nagaina ate frogs as well as small birds. The death of the pair therefore changes the condition of the entire garden, not only the safety of one household.

At the house, Teddy, his mother, and his father come out to Rikki-Tikki-Tavi. Teddy's mother is still pale because she has fainted, but the family gathers around the mongoose and nearly cries over him. That night he eats everything given to him and sleeps on Teddy's shoulder. Teddy's mother explicitly recognizes the consequence of the event: Rikki-Tikki-Tavi has saved Teddy's life and the lives of all three family members. The killing of Nagaina thus ends as both a physical victory over the cobra and the restoration of Rikki-Tikki-Tavi's place beside the human household he defended.

Narrative Significance

The event completes a revenge plot by turning Nagaina's intended repetition of violence against the conditions that sustain it. Nagaina wants to avenge Nag and preserve their brood; Rikki-Tikki-Tavi answers by destroying the eggs, exposing the last survivor as bait, and pursuing the mother into the hole. The decisive value shift is from imminent death on the veranda to safety in the house and across the garden. The victory is achieved through courage, speed, improvisation, and the willingness to enter the predator's own refuge.

The scene also gives animal characters independent strategic and communal agency. Rikki-Tikki-Tavi reads the eggs as a future danger, Darzee's wife understands how to distract Nagaina, and the Coppersmith converts private survival into public knowledge. Darzee's premature death song provides a sharp contrast with Rikki-Tikki-Tavi's practical certainty: the garden briefly mistakes the defender for the dead, then witnesses his return. Through that reversal, the story makes survival visible not as abstract heroism but as a battered body emerging from darkness with proof that the threat has ended.