Watership Down

30. A New Journey

With the exception of Buckthorn and the addition of Bluebell, the rabbits who set off from the southern end of the beech hanger early the next morning were those who had left Sandleford with Hazel five weeks before. Hazel had said nothing more to persuade them, feeling that it would be better simply to leave things to set in his favor. He knew that they were afraid, for he was afraid himself. Indeed, he guessed that they, like himself, could not be free from the thought of Efrafa and its grim Owsla. But working against this fear was their longing and need to find more does and the knowledge that there were plenty of does in Efrafa. Then there was their sense of mischief. All rabbits love to trespass and steal and when it comes to the point very few will admit that they are afraid to do so; unless (like Buckthorn or Strawberry on this occasion) they know that they are not fit and that their bodies may let them down in the pinch. Again, in speaking about his secret plan, Hazel had aroused their curiosity. He had hoped that, with Fiver behind him, he could lure them with hints and promises: and he had been right. The rabbits trusted him and Fiver, who had gotten them out of Sandleford before it was too late, crossed the Enborne and the common, taken Bigwig out of the wire, founded the warren on the downs, made an ally of Kehaar and produced two does against all odds. There was no telling what they would do next. But they were evidently up to something; and since Bigwig and Blackberry seemed to be confidently in on it, no one was ready to say that he would rather stay out; especially since Hazel had made it clear that anyone who wished could remain at home and welcome-implying that if he was so poor-spirited as to choose to miss the exploit, they could do without him. Holly, in whom loyalty was second nature, had said no more to queer the pitch. He accompanied them as far as the end of the wood with all the cheerfulness he could muster; only begging Hazel, out of hearing of the rest, not to underrate the danger. "Send news by Kehaar when he reaches you," he said, "and come back soon."

Nevertheless, as Silver guided them southward along higher ground to the west of the farm, almost all, now that they were actually committed to the adventure, felt dread and apprehension. They had heard enough about Efrafa to daunt the stoutest heart. But before reaching it-or wherever they were going-they had to expect two days on the open down. Foxes, stoats, weasels-any of these might be encountered, and the only recourse would be flight above ground. Their progress was straggling and broken, slower than that which Holly had made with his picked band of three. Rabbits strayed, took alarm, stopped to rest. After a time Hazel divided them into groups, led by Silver, Bigwig and himself. Yet still they moved slowly, like climbers on a rock face, first some and then others taking their turn to cross the same piece of ground.

But at least the cover was good. June was moving toward July and high summer. Hedgerows and verges were at their rankest and thickest. The rabbits sheltered in dim green sun-flecked caves of grass, flowering marjoram and cow parsley; peered round spotted hairy-stemmed clumps of viper's bugloss, blooming red and blue above their heads; pushed between towering stalks of yellow mullein. Sometimes they scuttled along open turf, colored like a tapestry meadow with self-heal, centaury and tormentil. Because of their anxiety about elil and because they were nose to ground and unable to see far ahead, the way seemed long.

Had their journey been made in years gone by, they would have found the downs far more open, without standing crops, grazed close by sheep; and they could hardly have hoped to go far unobserved by enemies. But the sheep were long gone and the tractors had plowed great expanses for wheat and barley. The smell of the green, standing corn was round them all day. The mice were numerous and so were the kestrels. The kestrels were disturbing, but Hazel had been right when he guessed that a healthy, full-grown rabbit was too large a quarry for them. At all events, no one was attacked from above.

Some time before ni-Frith, in the heat of the day, Silver paused in a little patch of thorn. There was no breeze and the air was full of the sweet, chrysanthemum-like smell of the flowering compositae of dry uplands-corn chamomile, yarrow and tansy. As Hazel and Fiver came up and squatted beside him, he looked out across the open ground ahead.

"There, Hazel-rah," he said, "that's the wood that Holly didn't like."

Two or three hundred yards away and directly across their line, a belt of trees ran straight across the down, stretching in each direction as far as they could see. They had come to the line of the Portway-only intermittently a road-which runs from north of Andover, through St. Mary Bourne with its bells and streams and watercress beds, through Bradley Wood, on across the downs and so to Tadley and at last to Silchester-the Romans' Calleva Atrebatum. Where it crosses the downs, the line is marked by Caesar's Belt, a strip of woodland as straight as the road, narrow indeed but more than three miles long. In this hot noonday the trees of the Belt were looped and netted with darkest shadow. The sun lay outside, the shadows inside the trees. All was still, save for the grasshoppers and the falling finch song of the yellowhammer on the thorn. Hazel looked steadily for a long time, listening with raised ears and wrinkling his nose in the unmoving air.

"I can't see anything wrong with it," he said at last. "Can you, Fiver?"

"No," replied Fiver. "Holly thought it was a strange kind of wood and so it is, but there don't seem to be any men there. All the same, someone ought to go and make sure, I suppose. Shall I?"

The third group had come up while Hazel had been gazing at the Belt, and now all the rabbits were either nibbling quietly or resting, with ears laid flat, in the light green sun-and-shade of the thorn thicket

"Is Bigwig there?" asked Hazel.

Throughout the morning Bigwig had seemed unlike himself-silent and preoccupied, with little attention for what was going on around him. If his courage had not been beyond question, it might have been thought that he was feeling nervous. During one long halt Bluebell had overheard him talking with Hazel, Fiver and Blackberry, and later had told Pipkin that it sounded for all the world as though Bigwig were being reassured. "Fighting, yes, anywhere," he had heard him say, "but I still reckon that this game is more in someone else's line than mine." "No," replied Hazel, "you're the only one that can do it: and remember, this isn't sport, if the farm raid was. Everything depends on it." Then, realizing that Bluebell could hear him, he added, "Anyway, keep on thinking about it and try to get used to the idea. We must get on now." Bigwig had gone moodily down the hedgerow to collect his group.

Now he came out of a nearby clump of mugwort and flowering thistle and joined Hazel under the thorn.

"What do you want?" he asked abruptly.

"King of Cats" (Pfeffa-rah), answered Hazel, "would you like to go and have a look in those trees? And if you find any cats or men or anything like that, just chase them off, would you, and then come and tell us it's all right?"

When Bigwig had slipped away, Hazel said to Silver, "Have you any idea how far the Wide Patrols go out? Are we inside their range yet?"

"I don't know, but I'd guess that we are," said Silver. "As I understand it, the range is up to the patrol. Under a pushing sort of captain, a patrol may go out a long way, I believe."

"I see," said Hazel. "Well, I don't want to meet a patrol if it can possibly be helped, and if we do, not one of them must get back to Efrafa. That's one reason why I brought so many of us. But by way of avoiding them, I'm going to try to make use of this wood. Perhaps they don't fancy it any more than Holly did."

"But surely it doesn't run the way we want to go?" said Silver.

"We're not going to Efrafa, though," said Hazel. "We're going to find somewhere to hide, as near to it as we can safely get. Any ideas?"

"Only that it's terribly dangerous, Hazel-rah," said Silver. "You can't get near Efrafa safely and I don't know how you can begin to look for somewhere to hide. And then the patrol-if there is one-they'll be cunning brutes. They might very well spot us and not show themselves at all-simply go and report."

"Well, here comes Bigwig back again," said Hazel. "Is it all right, Bigwig? Good-let's get them into the wood and go down the length of it a little way. Then we must slip out on the other side and make sure that Kehaar finds us. He's coming to look for us this afternoon and at all costs we mustn't miss him."

Less than half a mile to the west, they came upon a spinney adjoining the southern edge of Caesar's Belt. To the west again was a shallow, dry downland combe, perhaps four hundred yards across and overgrown with weeds and rough, yellowing summer tussocks. There, well before sunset, Kehaar, flying westward down the Belt, spotted the rabbits lying up, all among the nettles and goose grass. He sailed down and alighted near Hazel and Fiver.

"How's Holly?" asked Hazel.

" 'E sad," said Kehaar. "'E say you no come back." Then he added, "Mees Clover, she ready for mudder."

"That's good," said Hazel. "Is anyone doing anything about it?"

"Ya, ya, ees all to fight."

"Oh, well, I suppose it'll sort itself out."

"Vat you do now, Meester 'Azel?"

"This is where you start helping, Kehaar. We need a place to hide, as near the big warren as we can safely get-somewhere where those other rabbits won't find us. If you know the country well enough, perhaps you can suggest something."

"Meester 'Azel, 'ow close you vant?"

"Well, no further away than Nuthanger Farm is from the Honeycomb. In fact, that's really about the limit."

"Ees only von t'ing, Meester 'Azel. You go udder side river, den dey not find you."

"Over the river? You mean we swim across?"

"Na, na, rabbit no sveem dis river. Ees peeg, ees deep, go queek. But ees pridge, den udder side plenty place for hide. Ees close to varren, like you say."

"And you think that's the best we can do?"

"Ees plenty trees und ees river. Udder rabbits no find you."

"What do you think?" said Hazel to Fiver.

"It sounds better than I'd hoped for," said Fiver. "I hate to say it, but I think we ought to go straight there as fast as we can, even if it makes everyone exhausted. We're in danger all the time we're on the down, but once we get off it we can rest."

"Well, I suppose we'd better go on by night, if they'll do it-we've done it before-but they must feed and rest first. Start fu Inlé? There'll be a moon."

"Oh, how I've come to loathe those words 'start' and 'fu Inlé," said Blackberry.

However, the evening feed was peaceful and cool and after a time everyone felt refreshed. As the sun was sinking, Hazel brought them all together, under close cover, to chew pellets and rest. Although he did his best to appear confident and cheerful, he could feel that they were on edge, and after parrying one or two questions about the plan, he began to wonder how he could distract their thoughts and get them to relax until they were ready to set off again. He remembered the time, on the first night of his leadership, when they had been forced to rest in the wood above the Enborne. At least it was good to see that no one was exhausted now: they were as tough a bunch of hlessil as ever raided a garden. Not a blade of grass to choose between them, thought Hazel: Pipkin and Fiver looked as fresh as Silver and Bigwig. Still, a little entertainment would be all to the good and raise their spirits. He was just going to speak up when Acorn saved him the trouble.

"Will you tell us a story, Dandelion?" he asked.

"Yes! Yes!" said several others. "Come on! Make it a stunner while you're at it!"

"All right," said Dandelion. "How about 'El-ahrairah and the Fox in the Water'?"

"Let's have 'The Hole in the Sky," said Hawkbit.

"No, not that," said Bigwig suddenly. He had spoken very little all the evening and everyone looked round. "If you're going to tell a story, there's only one I want," he went on. "'El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inlé. »

"Perhaps not that one," said Hazel.

Bigwig rounded on him, snarling. "If there's going to be a story, don't you think I've got as good a right as anyone to choose it?" he asked.

Hazel did not reply and after a pause, during which no one else spoke, Dandelion, with a rather subdued manner, began.

31. The Story of El-ahrairah and the Black Rabbit of Inlé

"Sooner or later, everything leaks out and animals get to hear what others think about them. Some say that it was Hufsa who told King Darzin the truth about the trick with the lettuces. Others say that Yona the hedgehog went gossiping in the copses. But, however it was, King Darzin got to know that he had been made a fool when he delivered his lettuces to the marshes of Kelfazin. He did not call his soliders out to fight-not yet. But he made up his mind that he would find an opportunity to get his own back on El-ahrairah. El-ahrairah knew this and he warned all his people to be careful, especially when they went about alone.

"Now late one afternoon in February, Rabscuttle led some of the rabbits out to a rubbish heap on the edge of a garden, some way away from the warren. The evening came on cold and misty, and well before twilight a fog came down thick. They set off for home, but they got lost; and then they had trouble with an owl and became confused over their direction. Anyway, Rabscuttle got separated from the others, and after wandering about for some time, he strayed into the guards' quarters outside King Darzin's city; and they caught him and took him up to the King.

"King Darzin saw his chance to spite El-ahrairah. He put Rabscuttle into a special prison hole and every day he was brought out and made to work, sometimes in the frost, digging and tunneling. But El-ahrairah swore he would get him out somehow. And so he did, for he and two of his does spent four days digging a tunnel from the wood into the back of the bank where Rabscuttle had been set to work. And in the end this tunnel came near to the hole in the bank down which Rabscuttle had been sent. He was supposed to be digging to turn the hole into a storeroom and the guards were watching outside while he worked. But El-ahrairah reached him, for he could hear him scratching in the dark; and they all slipped away down the tunnel and escaped through the wood.

"When the news reached King Darzin, he became very angry indeed, and he determined that this time he would start a war and finish El-ahrairah once and for all. His soldiers set out in the night and went to the meadows of Fenlo; but they couldn't get down the rabbit holes. Some tried, to be sure, but they soon came out again, because they met El-ahrairah and the other rabbits. They were not used to fighting in narrow places in the dark and they got bitten and scratched until they were glad to come out tail-first.

"But they didn't go away: they sat outside and waited. Whenever any of the rabbits tried to silflay they found their enemies ready to jump on them. King Darzin and his soldiers couldn't watch all the holes-there were too many-but they were quick enough to dash off wherever they saw a rabbit show his nose. Very soon El-ahrairah's people found that it was all they could do to snatch a mouthful or two of grass-just enough to keep alive-before they had to bolt underground again. El-ahrairah tried every trick he could think of, but he couldn't be rid of King Darzin or get his own people away. The rabbits began to become thin and miserable underground and some of them fell ill.

"At last El-ahrairah felt quite desperate and one night, when he had been risking his life again and again to bring down a few mouthfuls of grass for a doe and her family whose father had been killed the day before, he called out, 'Lord Frith! I would do anything to save my people! I would drive a bargain with a stoat or a fox-yes, or with the Black Rabbit of Inlé!

"Now, as soon as he had said this, El-ahrairah realized in his heart that if there was one creature anywhere who might have the will and certainly had the power to destroy his enemies, it was the Black Rabbit of Inlé. For he was a rabbit, and yet more powerful than King Darzin a thousand times over. But the thought made El-ahrairah sweat and shudder, so that he had to crouch down where he was in the run. After a time he went to his own burrow and began to think of what he had said and what it meant.

"Now, as you all know, the Black Rabbit of Inlé is fear and everlasting darkness. He is a rabbit, but he is that cold, bad dream from which we can only entreat Lord Frith to save us today and tomorrow. When the snare is set in the gap, the Black Rabbit knows where the peg is driven; and when the weasel dances, the Black Rabbit is not far off. You all know how some rabbits seem just to throw their lives away between two jokes and a theft: but the truth is that their foolishness comes from the Black Rabbit, for it is by his will that they do not smell the dog or see the gun. The Black Rabbit brings sickness, too. Or again, he will come in the night and call a rabbit by name: and then that rabbit must go out to him, even though he may be young and strong to save himself from any other danger. He goes with the Black Rabbit and leaves no trace behind. Some say that the Black Rabbit hates us and wants our destruction. But the truth is-or so they taught me-that he, too, serves Lord Frith and does no more than his appointed task-to bring about what must be. We come into the world and we have to go: but we do not go merely to serve the turn of one enemy or another. If that were so, we would all be destroyed in a day. We go by the will of the Black Rabbit of Inlé and only by his will. And though that will seems hard and bitter to us all, yet in his way he is our protector, for he knows Frith's promise to the rabbits and he will avenge any rabbit who may chance to be destroyed without the consent of himself. Anyone who has seen a gamekeeper's gibbet knows what the Black Rabbit can bring down on elil who think they will do what they will.

"El-ahrairah spent the night alone in his burrow and his thoughts were terrible. As far as he knew, no rabbit had ever tried to do what he had in mind. But the more he thought about it-as well as he could for hunger and fear and the trance that comes upon rabbits face to face with death-the more it seemed to him that there was at least a chance of success. He would seek out the Black Rabbit and offer him his own life in return for the safety of his people. But if, when he offered his life, he did not mean the offer to be accepted, it would be better not to go near the Black Rabbit at all. The Black Rabbit might not accept his life: yet still, perhaps, he might get a chance to try something else. Only, there could be no cheating the Black Rabbit. If his people's safety were to be had, by whatever means, the price would be his life. So unless he failed, he would not return. He would therefore need a companion to bring back whatever it was that was going to overthrow King Darzin and save the warren.

"In the morning, El-ahrairah went to find Rabscuttle and they talked far into the day. Then he called his Owsla together and told them what he meant to do.

"Later that evening, in the last of the twilight, the rabbits came out and attacked King Darzin's soldiers. They fought very bravely and some of them were killed. The enemy thought they were trying to break out of the warren and did everything they could to surround them and force them back into their holes. But the truth was that all the fighting was simply to distract King Darzin's attention and keep his soldiers busy. As darkness set in, El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle slipped out from the other end of the warren and made off down the ditch, while the Owsla fell back and King Darzin's soldiers jeered at them down the holes. As for King Darzin, he sent a message to say that he was ready to talk to El-ahrairah about terms of surrender.

"El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle set out on their dark journey. What way they went I don't know and no rabbit knows. But I always remember what old Feverfew-d'you remember him? — used to say when he told this story. 'They didn't take long, he said. 'They took no time at all. No. They limped and stumbled through a bad dream to that terrible place they were bound for. Where they were traveling, the sun and moon mean nothing and winter and summer less. But you will never know'-and then he used to look all round at us-'you will never know, and neither do I, how far El-ahrairah went on his journey into the dark. You see the top of a great stone sticking out of the ground. How far is it to the middle? Split the stone. Then you'll know.

"At last they came to a high place where there was no grass. They scrambled upward, over splinters of slate, among gray rocks bigger than sheep. Mist and icy rain swirled about them and there was no sound but the trickling of water and sometimes, from far above, the cry of some great, evil bird on the wing. And these sounds echoed, for they were between black cliffs of stone, taller than the tallest trees. The snow lay in patches all about, for the sun never shone to melt it. The moss was slippery, and whenever they pushed out a pebble, it rattled down and down behind them in the gullies. But El-ahrairah knew the way and on he went, until the mist grew so thick that they could see nothing. Then they kept close to the cliff and little by little, as they went, it overhung them until it made a dark roof above their backs. Where the cliff ended was the mouth of a tunnel, like a huge rabbit hole. In the freezing cold and silence, El-ahrairah stamped and flashed his tail to Rabscuttle. And then, as they were about to go into the tunnel, they realized that what they had thought, in the gloom, to be a part of the rock was not rock. It was the Black Rabbit of Inlé, close beside them, still as lichen and cold as the stone."

"Hazel," said Pipkin, staring into the dusk and trembling, "I don't like this story. I know I'm not brave-"

"It's all right, Hlao-roo," said Fiver, "you're not the only one." In fact he himself seemed composed and even detached, which was more than could be said for any other rabbit in the audience: but Pipkin was hardly to realize this. "Let's go out there for a bit and watch the spiders catching moths, shall we?" said Fiver. "I think I can remember where I left a patch of vetch-it must be somewhere this way." Still talking quietly, he led Pipkin out into the overgrown combe. Hazel turned to make sure of the direction they had taken and as he did so Dandelion hesitated, uncertain whether to resume.

"Go on," said Bigwig, "and don't leave anything out."

"I think many things are left out, if only the truth could be known," said Dandelion, "for no one can say what happens in that country where El-ahrairah went of his own accord and we do not. But, as I was told, when they first became aware of the Black Rabbit, they fled down the tunnel-as needs they must, for there was nowhere else to run. And this they did although they had come on purpose to encounter him and all depended on their doing so. They did no differently from all of us; and the end, too, was no different, for when they had done slipping and tripping and falling along the tunnel, they found themselves in a vast stone burrow. All was of stone: the Black Rabbit had dug it out of the mountain with his claws. And there they found, waiting for them, him from whom they had fled. There were others in that burrow also-shadows without sound or smell. The Black Rabbit has his Owsla, too, you know. I would not care to meet them.

"The Black Rabbit spoke with the voice of water that falls into pools in echoing places in the dark.

" 'El-ahrairah, why have you come here?

" 'I have come for my people, whispered El-ahrairah.

"The Black Rabbit smelled as clean as last year's bones and in the dark El-ahrairah could see his eyes, for they were red with a light that gave no light.

" 'You are a stranger here, El-ahrairah, said the Black Rabbit. 'You are alive.

" 'My lord, replied El-ahrairah, 'I have come to give you my life. My life for my people.

"The Black Rabbit drew his claws along the floor.

" 'Bargains, bargains, El-ahrairah, he said. There is not a day or a night but a doe offers her life for her kittens, or some honest captain of Owsla his life for his Chief Rabbit's. Sometimes it is taken, sometimes it is not. But there is no bargain, for here what is is what must be.

"El-ahrairah was silent. But he thought, 'Perhaps I can trick him into taking my life. He would keep a promise, as Prince Rainbow kept his.

" 'You are my guest, El-ahrairah, said the Black Rabbit. 'Stay in my burrow as long as you wish. You may sleep here. And you may eat here, and they are few indeed who can do as much. Let him eat, he said to the Owsla.

" 'We will not eat, my lord, said El-ahrairah, for he knew that if he ate the food which they gave him in that burrow, his secret thoughts would become plain and there would be an end of tricks.

" 'Then at least we must entertain you, said the Black Rabbit. 'You must feel at home, El-ahrairah, and make yourself comfortable. Come, let us play bob-stones.[13]

" 'Very well, said El-ahrairah, 'and if I win, my lord, perhaps you will be so good as to accept my life in return for my people's safety.

" 'I will, said the Black Rabbit. 'But if I win, El-ahrairah, you shall give me both your tail and your whiskers.

"The stones were brought and El-ahrairah sat down in the cold and the echoes to play against the Black Rabbit of Inlé. Now, as you may suppose, El-ahrairah knew how to play bob-stones. He could play as well as any rabbit that ever covered a cast. But there-in that dreadful place, with the Black Rabbit's eyes upon him and the Owsla who made no sound-try as he would, his wits deserted him and even before he cast, he felt that the Black Rabbit knew what was down. The Black Rabbit showed never the least haste. He played as the snow falls, without sound or change, until at last El-ahrairah's spirit failed him and he knew that he could not win.

" 'You can pay your stakes to the Owsla, El-ahrairah, said the Black Rabbit, 'and they will show you a burrow to sleep in. I shall return tomorrow and if you are still here I will see you. But you are free to leave whenever you wish.

"Then the Owsla took El-ahrairah away and cut off his tail and pulled out his whiskers; and when he came to himself, he was alone with Rabscuttle in a hollow stone burrow, with an opening to the mountain outside.

" 'Oh, master, said Rabscuttle, 'what will you do now? For Frith's sake let us go away. I can feel for both of us in the dark.

" 'Certainly not, said El-ahrairah. He still hoped to get what he wanted from the Black Rabbit somehow and he felt sure that they had been put into this burrow so that they would be tempted to steal away. 'Certainly not. I can make do very well with some willow herb and clematis. Go out and get some, Rabscuttle, but make sure you come back before tomorrow evening. You had better try to bring some food, too, if you can.

"Rabscuttle went out as he was told and El-ahrairah was left alone. He slept very little, partly for the pain and partly for the fear that never left him; but chiefly because he was still searching for some trick that would serve his turn. The next day Rabscuttle returned with some pieces of turnip, and after El-ahrairah had eaten them, Rabscuttle helped him to patch himself up with a gray tail and whiskers made from the winter drift of clematis and ragwort. In the evening he went to meet the Black Rabbit as though nothing had happened.

" 'Well, El-ahrairah, said the Black Rabbit-and he did not wrinkle his nose up and down when he sniffed, but thrust it forward, as a dog does-'my burrow cannot be what you are used to: but perhaps you have done your best to make yourself comfortable?

" 'I have, my lord, said El-ahrairah. 'I am glad that you allow me to stay.

" 'Perhaps we will not play bob-stones tonight, said the Black Rabbit. 'You must understand, El-ahrairah, that I have no wish to make you suffer. I am not one of the Thousand. I repeat, you may stay or leave as you please. But if you are going to remain, perhaps you would care to hear a story; and to tell one yourself, if you like.

" 'Certainly, my lord, said El-ahrairah. 'And if I can tell a story as good as yours, perhaps you will accept my life and grant the safety of my people.

" 'I will, said the Black Rabbit. 'But if not, El-ahrairah, you will have to forfeit your ears. He waited to see whether El-ahrairah would refuse the wager but he did not.

"Then the Black Rabbit told such a tale of fear and darkness as froze the hearts of Rabscuttle and El-ahrairah where they crouched on the rock, for they knew that every word was true. Their wits turned. They seemed to be plunged in icy clouds that numbed their senses; and the Black Rabbit's story crept into their hearts like a worm into a nut, leaving them shriveled and empty. When at last that terrible story was ended, El-ahrairah tried to speak. But he could not collect his thoughts and he stammered and ran about the floor, like a mouse when the hawk glides low. The Black Rabbit waited silently, with no sign of impatience. At last it was clear that there would be no story from El-ahrairah, and the Owsla took him and put him into a deep sleep: and when he woke, his ears were gone and only Rabscuttle was beside him in the stone burrow, crying like a kitten.

" 'Oh, master, said Rabscuttle, 'what good can this suffering bring? For the sake of Lord Frith and the green grass, let me take you home.

" 'Nonsense, said El-ahrairah. 'Go out and get me two good, big dock leaves. They will do very well for ears.

" 'They will wither, master, said Rabscuttle, 'and I am withered now.

" 'They will last long enough, said El-ahrairah grimly, for what I have to do. But I cannot find the way.

"When Rabscuttle was gone, El-ahrairah forced himself to think clearly. The Black Rabbit would not accept his life. Also, it was plain that he himself would never be able to win any sort of wager against him: he might as well try to run a race across a sheet of ice. But if the Black Rabbit did not hate him, why did he inflict these sufferings upon him? To destroy his courage and make him give up and go away. But why not simply send him away? And why wait, before hurting him, till he himself proposed a wager and lost it? The answer came to him suddenly. These shadows had no power either to send him away or to hurt him, except with his own consent. They would not help him, no. They would seek possession of his will and break it if they could. But supposing that he could find among them something that would save his people, could they stop him from taking it away?

"When Rabscuttle came back, he helped El-ahrairah to diguise his horrible, maimed head with two dock leaves in place of ears, and after a while they slept. But El-ahrairah kept dreaming of his starving rabbits waiting in the runs to push back King Darzin's soldiers and placing all their hopes on him: and at last he woke, cold and cramped, and wandered out into the runs of the stone warren. As he limped along, trailing the dock leaves on either side of his head-for he could not raise or move them like the ears he had lost-he came to a place from which several narrow runs led down deeper into the ground; and here he found two of the ghastly, shadowy Owsla moving about some dark business of their own. They turned and stared, to make him afraid, but El-ahrairah was past being afraid and he stared back at them, wondering what they had in mind to persuade him to lose.

" 'Turn back, El-ahrairah, said one at last. 'You have no business here, in the pit. You are alive; and have suffered much already.

" 'Not as much as my people, replied El-ahrairah.

" 'There is enough suffering here for a thousand warrens, said the shadow. 'Do not be stubborn, El-ahrairah. In these holes lie all the plagues and diseases that come to rabbits-fever and mange and the sickness of the bowels. And here, too, in this nearest hole, lies the white blindness, that sends creatures hobbling out to die in the fields, where even the elil will not touch their rotting bodies. This is our task, to see that all these are ready for the use of Inlé-rah. For what is is what must be.

"Then El-ahrairah knew that he must give himself no time to think. He pretended to go back, but suddenly turned, rushed upon the shadows and plunged into the nearest hole faster than a raindrop into the ground. And there he lay, while the shadows flickered and gibbered about the entrance, for they had no power to move him, except by fear. After a time they went away and El-ahrairah was left alone, wondering whether he would be able to reach King Darzin's army in time without the use of whiskers or ears.

"At last, when he was sure that he must have stayed in the hole long enough to be infected, El-ahrairah came out and began to make his way back along the run. He did not know how soon the disease would appear or how long he would take to die, but plainly he ought to return as quickly as he could-if possible, before there was any sign of illness on him. Without going near Rabscuttle, he must tell him to hurry ahead, reach the rabbits in the warren and warn them to block all the holes and stay inside until King Darzin's army was destroyed.

"He blundered into a stone in the dark, for he was shivering and feverish and in any case he could feel little or nothing without his whiskers. At that moment a quiet voice said, 'El-ahrairah, where are you going? He had heard nothing, but he knew that the Black Rabbit was beside him.

" 'I am going home, my lord, he replied. 'You said that I might go when I wished.

" 'You have some purpose, El-ahrairah, said the Black Rabbit. 'What is it?

" 'I have been in the pit, my lord, answered El-ahrairah. 'I am infected with the white blindness and I am going to save my people by destroying the enemy.

" 'El-ahrairah, said the Black Rabbit, 'do you know how the white blindness is carried?

"A sudden misgiving seized upon El-ahrairah. He said nothing.

" 'It is carried by the fleas in rabbits' ears, said the Black Rabbit. 'They pass from the ears of a sick rabbit to those of his companions. But, El-ahrairah, you have no ears and fleas will not go to dock leaves. You can neither catch nor carry the white blindness.

"Then at last El-ahrairah felt that his strength and courage were gone. He fell to the ground. He tried to move, but his back legs dragged along the rock and he could not get up. He scuffled and then lay still in the silence.

" 'El-ahrairah, said the Black Rabbit at last, this is a cold warren: a bad place for the living and no place at all for warm hearts and brave spirits. You are a nuisance to me. Go home. I myself will save your people. Do not have the impertinence to ask me when. There is no time here. They are already saved.

"In that moment, while King Darzin and his soldiers were still jeering down the holes of the warren, confusion and terror came upon them in the falling darkness. The fields seemed full of huge rabbits with red eyes, stalking among the thistles. They turned and fled. They vanished in the night; and that is why no rabbit who tells the tales of El-ahrairah can say what kind of creatures they were or what they looked like. Not one of them has ever been seen, from that day to this.

"When at last El-ahrairah was able to rise to his feet, the Black Rabbit was gone and Rabscuttle was coming down the run, looking for him. Together they went out to the mountainside and made their way down the stone-rattling gully in the mist. They did not know where they were going, except that they were going away from the Black Rabbit's warren. But after a time it became plain that El-ahrairah was ill from shock and exhaustion. Rabscuttle dug a scrape and there they stayed for several days.

"Later, when El-ahrairah began to get better, they wandered on, but they could not find their way back. They were confused in their wits and had to beg help and shelter of other animals whom they met. Their journey home lasted three months, and many adventures they had. Some these, as you know, are stories in themselves. Once they lived with a lendri and found pheasants' eggs for him in the wood. And once they barely escaped from the middle of a hayfield when the hay was cutting. All the time, Rabscuttle looked after El-ahrairah, brought him fresh dock leaves and kept the flies from his wounds until they healed.

"At last, one day, they came back to the warren. It was evening, and as the sun stretched out all the hills, they could see any number of rabbits at silflay, nibbling in the grass and playing over the ant heaps. They stopped at the top of the field, sniffing the gorse and herb robert on the wind.

" 'Well, they look all right, said El-ahrairah. 'A healthy lot, really. Let's just slip in quietly and see whether we can find one or two of the Owsla captains underground. We don't want a lot of fuss.

"They made their way along the hedgerow, but could not altogether get their bearings, because apparently the warren had grown bigger and there were more holes than before, both in the bank and in the field. They stopped to speak to a group of smart young bucks and does sitting under the elder bloom.

" 'We want to find Loosestrife, said Rabscuttle. 'Can you tell us where his burrow is?

" 'I never heard of him, answered one of the bucks. 'Are you sure he's in this warren?

" 'Unless he's dead, said Rabscuttle. 'But surely you must have heard of Captain Loosestrife? He was an officer of the Owsla in the fighting.

" 'What fighting? asked another buck.

" 'The fighting against King Darzin, replied Rabscuttle.

" 'Here, do me a favor, old fellow, will you? said the buck. 'That fighting-I wasn't born when it finished.

" 'But surely you know the Owsla captains who were? said Rabscuttle.

" 'I wouldn't be seen dead with them, said the buck. 'What, that white-whiskered old bunch? What do we want to know about them?

" 'What they did, said Rabscuttle.

" 'That war lark, old fellow? said the first buck. 'That's all finished now. That's got nothing to do with us.

" 'If this Loosestrife fought King What's-His-Name, that's his business, said one of the does. 'It's not our business, is it?

" 'It was all a very wicked thing, said another doe. 'Shameful, really. If nobody fought in wars, there wouldn't be any, would there? But you can't get old rabbits to see that.

" 'My father was in it, said the second buck. 'He gets on about it sometimes. I always go out quick. "They did this and then we did that" and all that caper. Makes you curl up, honest. Poor old geezer, you'd think he'd want to forget about it. I reckon he makes half of it up. And where did it get him, tell me that?

" 'If you don't mind waiting a little while, sir, said a buck to El-ahrairah, 'I'll go and see if I can find Captain Loosestrife for you. I don't actually know him myself, but then it's rather a big warren.

" 'That's good of you, said El-ahrairah, 'but I think I've got my bearings now and I can manage by myself.

"El-ahrairah went along the hedgerow to the wood and sat alone under a nut bush, looking out across the fields. As the light began to fail, he suddenly realized that Lord Frith was close beside him, among the leaves.

" 'Are you angry, El-ahrairah? asked Lord Frith.

" 'No, my lord, replied El-ahrairah, 'I am not angry. But I have learned that with creatures one loves, suffering is not the only thing for which one may pity them. A rabbit who does not know when a gift has made him safe is poorer than a slug, even though he may think otherwise himself.

" 'Wisdom is found on the desolate hillside, El-ahrairah, where none comes to feed, and the stony bank where the rabbit scratches a hole in vain. But, speaking of gifts, I have brought a few trifles for you. A pair of ears, tail and some whiskers. You may find the ears slightly strange at first. I put a little starlight in them, but it is really quite faint: not enough, I am sure, to give away a clever thief like you. Ah, there is Rabscuttle coming back. Good, I have something for him, too. Shall we- »

"Hazel! Hazel-rah!" It was Pipkin's voice from behind a clump of burdock on the edge of the little circle of listeners. "There's a fox coming up the combe!"

32. Across the Iron Road

Some people have the idea that rabbits spend a good deal of their time running away from foxes. It is true that every rabbit fears the fox and will bolt if it smells one. But many rabbits go all their lives without seeing a fox and probably only a few actually fall victim to an enemy who smells strongly and cannot run as fast as they can. A fox trying to catch a rabbit usually creeps upwind under cover-perhaps through a patch of woodland to the edge. Then, if he succeeds in getting close to where the rabbits are at silflay along the bank or in the field, he lies still and watches his chance for a quick snatch. It is said that sometimes he fascinates them, as the weasel does, by rolling and playing in the open, coming closer little by little until he can make a grab. However this may be, it is certain that no fox hunts rabbits by going openly up a combe at sunset.

Neither Hazel nor any of the rabbits who had been listening to Dandelion's story had ever seen a fox. Nevertheless, they knew that a fox in the open, plain to be seen, is not dangerous as long as it is spotted in time. Hazel realized that he had been careless to allow everyone to gather round Dandelion and to have failed to post even one sentry. What wind there was was from the northeast and the fox, coming up the combe from the west, might have broken in upon them without warning. But from this danger they had been saved by Fiver and Pipkin going into the open. Even in his flash of alarm as Pipkin spoke, it crossed Hazel's mind that Fiver, no doubt reluctant to advise him in front of the others, had probably seized the opportunity provided by Pipkin's fear to post himself as a sentry.

Hazel thought quickly. If the fox were not too close, all they had to do was run. There was woodland nearby and they could vanish into it, keeping more or less together, and simply continue on their way. He pushed through the burdocks.

"How close is it?" he asked. "And where's Fiver?"

"I'm here," replied Fiver, from a few yards away. He was squatting under the long briars of a dog rose and did not turn his head as Hazel came up beside him. "And there's the fox," he added. Hazel followed his gaze.

The rough, weed-covered ground of the combe sloped away below them, a long dip bounded on the north by Caesar's Belt. The last of the setting sun shone straight up it through a break in the trees. The fox was below them and still some way off. Although it was almost directly downwind and therefore must be able to smell them, it did not look as though it were particularly interested in rabbits. It was trotting steadily up the combe like a dog, trailing its white-tipped brush. In color it was sandy brown, with dark legs and ears. Even now, though obviously not hunting, it had a crafty, predatory look that made the watchers among the dog roses shiver. As it passed behind a patch of thistles and disappeared from view, Hazel and Fiver returned to the others.

"Come on," said Hazel. "If you've never seen a fox, don't bother to go and look now. Just follow me."

He was about to lead the way up the south side of the combe when suddenly a rabbit shouldered him roughly aside, pushed past Fiver and was gone into the open. Hazel stopped and looked round in amazement.

"Who was that?" he asked.

"Bigwig," answered Fiver, staring.

Together they went quickly back to the briars and once more looked into the combe. Bigwig, in full view, was loping warily downhill, straight toward the fox. They watched him, aghast. He drew near, but still the fox paid no attention.

"Hazel," said Silver from behind, "shall I-?"

"No one is to move," said Hazel quickly. "Keep still, all of you."

At about thirty yards' distance the fox saw the approaching rabbit. It paused for a moment and then continued to trot forward. It was almost upon him before Bigwig turned and began to limp up the north slope of the combe toward the trees of the Belt. The fox hesitated again and then followed him.

"What's he up to?" muttered Blackberry.

"Trying to draw it off, I suppose," replied Fiver.

"But he didn't have to! We should have got away without that."

"Confounded fool!" said Hazel. "I don't know when I've been so angry."

The fox had quickened its pace and was now some distance away from them. It appeared to be overtaking Bigwig. The sun had set and in the failing light they could just make him out as he entered the undergrowth. He disappeared and the fox followed. For several moments all was quiet. Then, horribly clear across the darkening, empty combe, there came the agonizing squeal of a stricken rabbit.

"O Frith and Inlé!" cried Blackberry, stamping. Pipkin turned to bolt. Hazel did not move.

"Shall we go, Hazel?" asked Silver. "We can't help him now."

As he spoke, Bigwig suddenly broke out of the trees, running very fast. Almost before they could grasp that he was alive, he had recrossed the entire upper slope of the combe in a single dash and bolted in among them.

"Come on," said Bigwig, "let's get out of here!"

"But what-what-Are you wounded?" asked Bluebell in bewilderment.

"No," said Bigwig, "never better! Let's go!"

"You can wait until I'm ready," said Hazel in a cold, angry tone. "You've done your best to kill yourself and acted like a complete fool. Now hold your tongue and sit down!" He turned and, although it was rapidly becoming too dark to see any distance, made as though he were still looking out across the combe. Behind him, the rabbits fidgeted nervously. Several had begun to feel a dreamlike sense of unreality. The long day above ground, the close, overgrown combe, the frightening story in which they had been absorbed, the sudden appearance of the fox, the shock of Bigwig's inexplicable adventure-all these, following one upon another, had flooded their spirits and left them dull and bemused.

"Get them out, Hazel," whispered Fiver, "before they all go tharn."

Hazel turned at once. "Well, no fox," he said cheerfully. "It's gone and we'll go, too. For goodness' sake keep close together, because if anyone gets lost in the dark we may not find him again. And remember, if we come upon any strange rabbits, you're to attack them at once and ask questions afterward."

They skirted the side of the wood that lay along the southern edge of the combe and then, in ones and twos, slipped across the empty road beyond. Little by little their spirits cleared. They found themselves in open farmland-indeed, they could both smell and hear the farm, not far away on the evening side-and the going was easy: smooth, wide pasture fields, sloping gently downhill and divided not by hedges but by broad, low banks, each as wide as a lane and overgrown with elder, dogwood and spindle. It was true rabbit country, reassuring after the Belt and the tangled, goose-grassed combe; and when they had covered a good distance over the turf-halting continually to listen and sniff and running, now one and now another, from each piece of cover to the next-Hazel felt safe in giving them a rest. As soon as he had sent out Speedwell and Hawkbit as sentries, he led Bigwig to one side.

"I'm angry with you," he said. "You're the one rabbit we're not going to be able to do without and you have to go and run a silly risk like that. It wasn't necessary and it wasn't even clever. What were you up to?"

"I'm afraid I just lost my head, Hazel," replied Bigwig. "I've been strung up all day, thinking about this business at Efrafa-got me really on edge. When I feel like that I have to do something-you know, fight or run a risk. I thought if I could make that fox look a fool I wouldn't feel so worried about the other thing. What's more, it worked-I feel a lot better now."

"Playing El-ahrairah," said Hazel. "You duffer, you might have thrown your life away for nothing-we all thought you had. Don't try it again, there's a good chap. You know everything's going to depend on you. But tell me, whatever happened in the trees? Why did you cry like that, if you were all right?"

"I didn't," said Bigwig. "It was very queer, what happened, and bad, too, I'm afraid. I was going to lose the homba in the trees, you see, and then come back. Well, I went into the undergrowth, and I'd just stopped limping and was starting to run really fast when suddenly I found myself face to face with a bunch of rabbits-strangers. They were coming toward me, as if they were going out into the open combe. Of course, I didn't have time to get a good look at them, but they seemed to be big fellows. 'Look out-run! I said as I dashed up to them, but all they did was try to stop me. One of them said, 'You stay here! or something like that, and then he got right in my way. So I knocked him down-I had to-and raced off, and the next thing I heard was this dreadful squealing. Of course, I went even faster then and I got clear of the trees and came back to you."

"So the homba got this other rabbit?"

"It must have. After all, I led it right onto them, even though I didn't mean to. But I never saw what actually happened."

"What became of the others?"

"I've no idea. They must have run, I suppose."

"I see," said Hazel thoughtfully. "Well, perhaps it's all for the best. But look here, Bigwig, no more fancy tricks until the proper time-there's too much at stake. You'd better stay near Silver and me-we'll keep you in good heart."

At that moment Silver came up to them.

"Hazel," he said, "I've just realized where we are and it's a lot too close to Efrafa. I think we ought to make off as soon as we can."

"I want to go right round Efrafa-wide," said Hazel. "Do you think you can find the way to that iron road Holly told us about?"

"I think so," replied Silver. "But we can't make too big a circle or they'll be completely exhausted. I can't say I know the way, but I can tell the direction all right."

"Well, we'll just have to take the risk," said Hazel. "If only we can get there by early morning, they can rest at the other end."

They met with no more adventures that night, moving quietly along the edges of the fields under the dim light of a quarter-moon. The half-darkness was full of sounds and movement. Once Acorn put up a plover, which flew round them, calling shrilly, until at length they crossed a bank and left it behind. Soon after, somewhere near them, they heard the unceasing bubbling of a nightjar-a peaceful sound, without menace, which died gradually away as they pushed on. And once they heard a corncrake calling as it crept among the long grass of a path verge. (It makes a sound like a human fingernail drawn down the teeth of a comb.) But elil they met none and although they were continually on the watch for signs of an Efrafan patrol, they saw nothing but mice, and a few hedgehogs hunting for slugs along the ditches.

At last, as the first lark rose toward the light that was still far up in the sky, Silver, his pale fur sodden dark with dew, came limping back to where Hazel was encouraging Bluebell and Pipkin.

"You can pluck up your spirits, Bluebell," he said. "I think we're close to the iron road."

"I wouldn't care about my spirits," said Bluebell, "if my legs weren't so tired. Slugs are lucky not to have legs. I think I'll be a slug."

"Well, I'm a hedgehog," said Hazel, "so you'd better get on!"

"You're not," replied Bluebell. "You haven't enough fleas. Now, slugs don't have fleas, either. How comforting to be a slug, among the dandelions so snug-"

"And feel the blackbird's sudden tug," said Hazel. "All right, Silver, we're coming. But where is the iron road? Holly said a steep, overgrown bank. I can't make out anything like that."

"No, that's away up by Efrafa. Down here it runs in a sort of combe of its own. Can't you smell it?"

Hazel sniffed. In the cool damp, he picked up at once the unnatural smells of metal, coal smoke and oil. They went forward and in a very short time found themselves looking down from among the bushes and undergrowth on the edge of the railway cutting. All was quiet, but as they paused at the top of the bank, a tussling pack of six or seven sparrows flew down to the line and began to peck about between the sleepers. Somehow, the sight was reassuring.

"Are we to cross, Hazel-rah?" asked Blackberry.

"Yes," said Hazel, "at once. Put it between us and Efrafa: then we'll feed."

They went rather hesitantly down into the cutting, half expecting the fiery, thundering angel of Frith to appear out of the twilight; but the silence remained unbroken. Soon they were all feeding in the meadow beyond, too tired to pay attention to concealment or to anything but the ease of resting their legs and nibbling the grass.

From above the larches Kehaar sailed down among them, alighted and folded his long, pale gray wings.

"Meester 'Azel, vat you do? You no stay 'ere?"

"They're tired out, Kehaar. They've got to have a rest."

"Ees not to rest 'ere. Ees rabbits come."

"Yes, but not just yet. We can-"

"Ya, ya, ees coming for find you! Ees close!"

"Oh, curse these confounded patrols!" cried Hazel. "Come on, all of you, get down the field into that wood! Yes, you, too, Speedwell, unless you want to have your ears chewed off in Efrafa. Come on, movel"

They tottered over the pasture to the woodland beyond and lay completely exhausted on flat, bare ground under fir trees. Hazel and Fiver consulted Kehaar again.

"It's no good expecting them to go any further, Kehaar," said Hazel. "They've been going all night, you know. We'll have to sleep here today. Did you actually see a patrol?"

"Ya, ya, come all along by udder side iron road. Yoost in time you go."

"Well, then, you saved us. But look, Kehaar, could you go and see where they are now? If they're gone, I'm going to tell our lot to go to sleep-not that they need telling: look at them!"

Kehaar returned with the news that the Efrafan patrol had turned back without crossing the iron road. Then he offered to keep watch himself until the evening and Hazel, greatly relieved, at once told the rabbits to sleep. One or two had already fallen asleep, lying on their sides on the open ground. Hazel wondered whether he ought to wake them and tell them to get under thicker cover, but as he was thinking about it he fell asleep himself.

The day came on hot and still. Among the trees the wood pigeons called drowsily and from time to time a late cuckoo stammered. In the fields, nothing moved except the constantly swishing tails of the cows gathered flank to flank in the shade.

33. The GreatRiver

When Hazel woke, he started up at once, for the air around him was full of the sharp cries of some creature hunting. He looked quickly round, but could see no signs of alarm. It was evening. Several of the rabbits were already awake and feeding on the edge of the wood. He realized that the cries, urgent and startling though they were, were too small and shrill for any kind of elil. They came from above his head. A bat flittered through the trees and out again without touching a twig. It was followed by another. Hazel could sense that there were many all about, taking flies and moths on the wing and uttering their minute cries as they flew. A human ear would hardly have heard them, but to the rabbits the air was full of their calls. Outside the wood, the field was still bright with evening sunshine, but among the firs the light was dusky and here the bats were coming and going thickly. Mixed with the resinous scent of the firs there came another smell, strong and fragrant, yet sharp-the perfume of flowers, but of some kind unknown to Hazel. He followed it to its source at the edge of the wood. It came from several thick patches of soapwort growing along the edge of the pasture. Some of the plants were not yet in bloom, their buds curled in pink, pointed spirals held in the pale green calices, but most were already star-flowering and giving off their strong scent. The bats were hunting among the flies and moths attracted to the soapwort.

Hazel passed hraka and began to feed in the field. He was disturbed to find that his hind leg was troubling him. He had thought that it was healed, but the forced journey over the downs had evidently proved too much for the muscle torn by the shotgun pellets. He wondered whether it was far to the river of which Kehaar had spoken. If it was, he was in for trouble.

"Hazel-rah," said Pipkin, coming up from among the soapwort, "are you all right? Your leg looks queer-you're dragging it."

"No, it's all right," said Hazel. "Look, Hlao-roo, where's Kehaar? I want to talk to him."

"He's flown out to see if there's a patrol anywhere near, Hazel-rah. Bigwig woke some time ago and he and Silver asked Kehaar to go. They didn't want to disturb you."

Hazel felt irritated. It would have been better to be told at once which way to go, rather than to wait while Kehaar looked for patrols. They were going to cross a river and, as far as he was concerned, they could not do it too soon. Fretting, he waited for Kehaar. Soon he had become as tense and nervous as he had ever been in his life. He was beginning to believe that after all he might have been rash. It was clear that Holly had not underrated their danger near Efrafa. He had little doubt that Bigwig, by sheer chance, had led the fox onto a Wide Patrol which had been following their trail. Then, in the morning, again by luck and the help of Kehaar, they had evidently just missed another at the crossing of the iron road. Perhaps Silver's fear was well founded and a patrol had already spotted and reported them without their knowing? Had General Woundwort got some sort of Kehaar of his own? Perhaps a bat was at this moment talking to him? How was one to foresee and guard against everything? The grass seemed sour, the sunshine chilly. Hazel sat hunched under the firs, worrying dismally. He felt less annoyed, now, with Bigwig: he could understand his feelings. Waiting was bad. He fidgeted for some kind of action. Just as he had decided to wait no longer, but to collect everyone and go immediately, Kehaar came flying from the direction of the cutting. He flapped clumsily down among the firs, silencing the bats.

"Meester 'Azel, ees no rabbits. I t'ink maybe dey no like for go across iron road."

"Good. Is it far to the river, Kehaar?"

"Na, na. Ees close, in vood."

"Splendid. We can find this crossing in daylight?"

"Ya, ya. I show you pridge."

The rabbits had gone only a short distance through the wood when they sensed that they were already near the river. The ground became soft and damp. They could smell sedge and water. Suddenly, the harsh, vibrating cry of a moor hen echoed through the trees, followed by a flapping of wings and a watery scuttering. The rustling of the leaves seemed also to echo, as though reflected distantly from hard ground. A little further on, they could distinctly hear the water itself-the low, continuous pouring of a shallow fall. A human being, hearing from a distance the noise of a crowd, can form an idea of its size. The sound of the river told the rabbits that it must be bigger than any they had known before-wide, smooth and swift. Pausing among the comfrey and ground elder, they stared at each other, seeking reassurance. Then they began to lollop hesitantly forward into more open ground. There was still no river to be seen, but in front they could perceive a flicker and dance of mirrored light in the air. Soon afterward Hazel, limping ahead with Fiver near him, found himself on a narrow green path that divided the wilderness from the riverbank.

The path was almost as smooth as a lawn and clear of bushes and weeds, for it was kept cut for fishermen. Along its further side the riparian plants grew thickly, so that it was separated from the river by a kind of hedge of purple loosestrife, great willow herb, fleabane, figwort and hemp agrimony, here and there already in bloom. Two or three more of the rabbits emerged from the wood. Peering through the plant clumps, they could catch glimpses of the smooth, glittering river, evidently much wider and swifter than the Enborne. Although there was no enemy or other danger to be perceived, they felt the apprehension and doubt of those who have come unawares upon some awe-inspiring place where they themselves are paltry fellows of no account. When Marco Polo came at last to Cathay, seven hundred years ago, did he not feel-and did his heart not falter as he realized-that this great and splendid capital of an empire had had its being all the years of his life and far longer, and that he had been ignorant of it? That it was in need of nothing from him, from Venice, from Europe? That it was full of wonders beyond his understanding? That his arrival was a matter of no importance whatever? We know that he felt these things, and so has many a traveler in foreign parts who did not know what he was going to find. There is nothing that cuts you down to size like coming to some strange and marvelous place where no one even stops to notice that you stare about you.

The rabbits were uneasy and confused. They crouched on the grass, sniffing the water smells in the cooling, sunset air: and moved closer together, each hoping not to see in the others the nervousness he felt in himself. As Pipkin reached the path a great, shimmering dragonfly, four inches long, all emerald and sable, appeared at his shoulder, hovered, droning and motionless, and was gone like lightning into the sedge. Pipkin leaped back in alarm. As he did so there came a shrill, vibrant cry and he caught sight, between the plants, of a brilliant azure bird flashing past over the open water. A few moments later there came, from close behind the plant hedge, the sound of a fairly heavy splash: but what creature might have made it there was no telling.

Looking round for Hazel, Pipkin caught sight of Kehaar, a little way off, standing in a patch of shallow water between two clumps of willow herb. He was stabbing and snapping at something in the mud and after a few moments pulled out a six-inch leech and swallowed it whole. Beyond him, some distance down the path, Hazel was combing the goose grass out of his coat and evidently listening to Fiver as they sat together under a rhododendron. Pipkin ran along the bank and joined them.

"There's nothing wrong with the place," Fiver was saying. "There's no more danger here than anywhere else. Kehaar's going to show us where to get across, isn't he? The thing to do is to get on with it before it gets dark."

"They'll never stop here," replied Hazel. "We can't stay and wait for Bigwig in a place like this. It's unnatural for rabbits."

"Yes, we can-calm down. They'll get used to it quicker than you think. I tell you, it's better than one or two other places we've been in. Not all strange things are bad. Would you like me to take them over? Say it's because of your leg."

"Fine," said Hazel. "Hlao-roo, can you get everyone along here?"

When Pipkin had gone, he said, "I feel troubled, Fiver. I'm asking so much of them, and there are so many risks in this plan."

"They're a better lot than you give them credit for," replied Fiver. "If you were to-"

Kehaar called raucously across, startling a wren out of the bushes.

"Meester 'Azel, vat for you vait?"

"To know where to go," answered Fiver.

"Pridge near. You go on, you see."

Where they were, the undergrowth stood close to the green path, but beyond-downstream, as they all intuitively felt-it gave way to open parkland. Out into this they went, Hazel following Fiver.

Hazel did not know what a bridge was. It was another of Kehaar's unknown words that he did not feel up to questioning. Despite his trust in Kehaar and his respect for his wide experience, he felt still more disturbed as they came into the open. Clearly, this was some sort of man place, frequented and dangerous. A short way ahead was a road. He could see its smooth, unnatural surface stretching away over the grass. He stopped and looked at it. At length, when he was sure that there were no men anywhere near, he went cautiously up to the verge.

The road crossed the river on a bridge about thirty feet long. It did not occur to Hazel that there was anything unusual in this. The idea of a bridge was beyond him. He saw only a line of stout posts and rails on either side of the road. Similarly, simple African villagers who have never left their remote homes may not be particularly surprised by their first sight of an airplane: it is outside their comprehension. But their first sight of a horse pulling a cart will set them pointing and laughing at the ingenuity of the fellow who thought of that one. Hazel saw without surprise the road crossing the river. What worried him was that where it did so there were only very narrow verges of short grass, offering no cover. His rabbits would be exposed to view and unable to bolt, except along the road.

"Do you think we can risk it, Fiver?" he asked.

"I can't see why you're bothered," answered Fiver. "You went into the farmyard and the shed where the hutch rabbits were. This is much less dangerous. Come on-they're all watching while we hesitate."

Fiver hopped out on the road. He looked round for a moment and then made his way to the nearer end of the bridge. Hazel followed him along the verge, keeping close beside the rail on the upstream side. Looking round, he saw Pipkin close behind. In the middle of the bridge Fiver, who was perfectly calm and unhurried, stopped and sat up. The other two joined him.

"Let's put on a bit of an act," said Fiver. "Make them inquisitive. They'll follow us just to see what we're looking at."

There was no sill along the edge of the bridge: they could have walked off it into the water three feet below. From under the lowest rail they looked out, upstream, and now, for the first time, saw the whole river plainly. If the bridge had not startled Hazel, the river did. He remembered the Enborne, its surface broken by gravel spits and plant growth. The Test, a weed-cut, carefully tended trout stream, seemed to him like a world of water. A good ten yards wide it was, fast-flowing and smooth, spangling and dazzling in the evening sun. The tree reflections on the even current were unbroken as on a lake. There was not a reed or a plant to be seen above the water. Close by, under the left bank, a bed of crowfoot trailed downstream, the wheel-like leaves all submerged. Darker still, almost black, were the mats of water moss, their thick masses motionless on the bed of the river and only the trailing fronds waving slowly from side to side. Waving, too, were the wider expanses of pale green cressweed; but these rippled with the current, lightly and quickly. The water was very clear, with a bed of clean yellow gravel, and even in the middle was hardly four feet deep. As the rabbits stared down they could discern, here and there, a very fine scour, like smoke- chalk and powdered gravel carried along by the river as dust is blown on the wind. Suddenly, from under the bridge, with a languid movement of its flat tail, swam a gravel-colored fish as long as a rabbit. The watchers, immediately above, could see the dark, vivid spots along its sides. Warily it hung in the current below them, undulating from side to side. It reminded Hazel of the cat in the yard. As they stared, it swam upward with a lithe flicker and stopped just below the surface. A moment later its blunt nose thrust clear of the stream and they saw the open mouth, pure white inside. Rhythmically, without haste, it sucked down a floating sedge fly and sank back under water. A ripple spread outward in subsiding circles, breaking both the reflections and the transparency. Gradually the stream grew smooth and once more they saw the fish below them, waving its tail as it held its place in the current.

"A water hawk!" said Fiver. "So they hunt and eat down there, too! Don't fall in, Hlao-roo. Remember El-ahrairah and the pike."

"Would it eat me?" asked Pipkin, staring.

"There may be creatures in there that could," said Hazel. "How do we know? Come on, let's get across. What would you do if a hrududu came?"

"Run," said Fiver simply, "like this." And he scurried off the further end of the bridge into the grass beyond.

On this far side of the river, undergrowth and a grove of great horse chestnuts extended almost down to the bridge. The ground was marshy, but at least there was plenty of cover. Fiver and Pipkin began at once on some scrapes, while Hazel sat chewing pellets and resting his injured leg. Soon they were joined by Silver and Dandelion, but the other rabbits, more hesitant even than Hazel, remained crouching in the long grass on the right bank. At last, just before darkness fell, Fiver re-crossed the bridge and coaxed them to follow him back. Bigwig, to everyone's surprise, showed considerable reluctance, and only crossed in the end after Kehaar, returning from another flight over Efrafa, had asked whether he would like him to go and fetch a fox.

The night that followed seemed to all of them disorganized and precarious. Hazel, still conscious of being in man country, was half expecting either a dog or a cat. But although they heard owls more than once, no elil attacked them and by the morning they were in better spirits.

As soon as they had fed, Hazel set them to exploring the surroundings. It became even more plain that the ground near the river was too wet for rabbits. Indeed, in places it was almost bog. Marsh sedge grew there, pink, sweet-scented valerian and the drooping water avens. Silver reported that it was drier up in the woodland away from the bank, and at first Hazel had the idea of picking a fresh spot and digging again. But presently the day grew so hot and humid that all activity was quenched. The faint breeze vanished. The sun drew up a torpid moisture from the watery thickets. The smell of water mint filled all the hydrophanic air. The rabbits crept into the shade, under any cover that offered. Long before ni-Frith, all were drowsing in the undergrowth.

It was not until the dappled afternoon began to grow cool that Hazel woke suddenly, to find Kehaar beside him. The gull was strutting from side to side with short, quick steps and pecking impatiently in the long grass. Hazel sat up quickly.

"What is it, Kehaar? Not a patrol?"

"Na, na. Ees all fine for sleep like bloody owls. Maybe I go for Peeg Vater. Meester 'Azel, you getting mudders now soon? Vat for vait now?"

"No, you're right, Kehaar, we must start now. The trouble is, I can see how to start but not how to finish."

Hazel made his way through the grass, roused the first rabbit he found-who happened to be Bluebell-and sent him to fetch Bigwig, Blackberry and Fiver. When they came, he took them to join Kehaar on the short grass of the riverbank.

"This is the problem, Blackberry," he said. "You remember that when we were under the down that evening I said we should have to do three things: get the does out of Efrafa, break up the pursuit and then get right away so that they wouldn't find us. This plan you've thought up is clever. It'll do the first two things, all right, I'm sure of that. But what about the last one? The Efrafan rabbits are fast and savage. They'll find us if we're to be found and I don't believe we can run away faster than they can follow-especially with a lot of does who've never been out of Efrafa. We couldn't possibly stand and fight them to a finish-we're too few. And on top of that, my leg seems to be bad again. So what's to be done?"

"I don't know," answered Blackberry. "But, obviously, we shall need to disappear. Could we swim the river? No scent then, you know."

"It's too swift," said Hazel. "We'd be carried away. But even if we did swim it, we couldn't count on not being followed. From what I've heard of these Efrafans, they'd certainly swim the river if they thought we had. What it comes to is that, with Kehaar to help us, we can break up a pursuit while we're getting the does out, but they'll know which way we've gone and they won't leave it at that. No, you're right, we've got to vanish without a trace, so that they can't even track us. But how?"

"I don't know," said Blackberry again. "Shall we go up the river a little way and have a look at it? Perhaps there's somewhere we could use for a hiding place. Can you manage that, with your leg?"

"If we don't go too far," replied Hazel.

"Can I come, Hazel-rah?" asked Bluebell, who had been waiting about, a little way off.

"Yes, all right," said Hazel good-naturedly, as he began to limp along the bank upstream.

They soon realized that the woodland on this left bank was lonely, thick and overgrown-denser than the nut copses and bluebell woods of Sandleford. Several times they heard the drumming of a great woodpecker, the shyest of birds. As Blackberry was suggesting that perhaps they might look for a hiding place somewhere in this jungle, they became aware of another sound-the falling water which they had heard on their approach the day before. Soon they reached a place where the river curved round in a bend from the east, and here they came upon the broad, shallow fall. It was no more than a foot high-one of those artificial falls, common on the chalk streams, made to attract trout. Several were already rising to the evening hatch of fly. Just above the fall a plank footbridge crossed the river. Kehaar flew up, circled the pool and perched on the hand rail.

"This is more sheltered and lonely than the bridge we crossed last night," said Blackberry. "Perhaps we could make some use of it. You didn't know about this bridge, Kehaar, did you?"

"Na, not know, not see heem. But ees goot pridge-no von come."

"I'd like to go across, Hazel-rah," said Blackberry.

"Well, Fiver's the rabbit for that," replied Hazel. "He simply loves crossing bridges. You carry on. I'll come behind, with Bigwig and Bluebell here."

The five rabbits hopped slowly along the planks, their great, sensitive ears full of the sound of the falling water. Hazel, who was not sure of his footing, had to stop several times. When at length he reached the further side, he found that Fiver and Blackberry had already gone a little way downstream below the fall and were looking at some large object sticking out from the bank. At first he thought that it must be a fallen tree trunk, but as he came closer he saw that, although it was certainly wooden, it was not round, but flat, or nearly flat, with raised edges-some man thing. He remembered how once, long ago, sniffing over a farm rubbish heap with Fiver, he had come upon a similar object-large, smooth and flat. (That had, in fact, been an old, discarded door.) It had been of no use to them and they had left it alone. His inclination was to leave this alone, too.

One end of the thing was pressed into the bank, but along its length it diverged, sticking out slightly into the stream. There were ripples round it, for under the banks the current was as swift as in midstream, on account of weed-cutting and sound camp-sheeting. As Hazel came nearer, he saw that Blackberry had actually scrambled on the thing. His claws made a faint hollow sound on the wood, so there must be water underneath. Whatever it might be, the thing did not extend downward to the bottom: it was lying on the water.

"What are you after, Blackberry?" he said rather sharply.

"Food," replied Blackberry. "Flayrah. Can't you smell it?"

Kehaar had alighted on the middle of the thing, and was snapping away at something white. Blackberry scuttered along the wood toward him and began to nibble at some kind of greenstuff. After a little while Hazel also ventured out on the wood and sat in the sunshine, watching the flies on the warm, varnished surface and sniffing the strange river smells that came up from the water.

"What is this man thing, Kehaar?" he asked. "Is it dangerous?"

"Na, no dangerous. You not know? Ees poat. At Peeg Vater is many, many poat. Men make dem, go on vater. Ees no harm."

Kehaar went on pecking at the broken pieces of stale bread. Blackberry, who had finished the fragments of lettuce he had found, was sitting up and looking over the very low side, watching a stone-colored, black-spotted trout swim up into the fall. The «boat» was a miniature punt, used for reed-cutting-little more than a raft, with a single thwart amidships. Even when it was unmanned, as now, there were only a few inches of freeboard.

"You know," said Fiver from the bank, "seeing you sitting there reminds me of that other wooden thing you found when the dog was in the wood and you got Pipkin and me over the river. Do you remember?"

"I remember shoving you along," said Bigwig. "It was jolly cold."

"What puzzles me," said Blackberry, "is why this boat thing doesn't go along. Everything in this river goes along, and fast, too-see there." He looked out at a piece of stick floating down on the even two-mile-an-hour current. "So what's stopping this thing from going?"

Kehaar had a short-way-with-landlubbers manner which he sometimes used to those of the rabbits that he did not particularly like. Blackberry was not one of his favorites: he preferred straightforward characters such as Bigwig, Buckthorn and Silver.

"Ees rope. You like bite heem, den you go damn queek, all de vay."

"Yes, I see," said Fiver. "The rope goes round that metal thing where Hazel's sitting: and the other end's fixed on the bank here. It's like the stalk of a big leaf. You could gnaw it through and the leaf-the boat-would drop off the bank."

"Well, anyway, let's go back now," said Hazel, rather dejectedly. "I'm afraid we don't seem to be any nearer to finding what we're looking for, Kehaar. Can you possibly wait until tomorrow? I had the idea that we might all move to somewhere a bit drier before tonight-higher up in the wood, away from the river."

"Oh, what a pity!" said Bluebell. "Do you know, I'd quite decided to become a water rabbit."

"A what?" asked Bigwig.

"A water rabbit," repeated Bluebell. "Well, there are water rats and water beetles and Pipkin says that last night he saw a water hawk. So why not a water rabbit? I shall float merrily along-"

"Great golden Frith on a hill!" cried Blackberry suddenly. "Great jumping Rabscuttle! That's it! That's it! Bluebell, you shall be a water rabbit!" He began leaping and skipping about on the bank and cuffing Fiver with his front paws. "Don't you see, Fiver? Don't you see? We bite the rope and off we go: and General Woundwort doesn't know!"

Fiver paused. "Yes, I do see," he replied at length. "You mean on the boat. I must say, Blackberry, you're a clever fellow. I remember now that after we'd crossed that other river you said that that floating trick might come in handy again sometime."

"Here, wait a moment," said Hazel. "We're just simple rabbits, Bigwig and I. Do you mind explaining?"

Then and there, while the black gnats settled on their ears, by the plank bridge and the pouring waterfall, Blackberry and Fiver explained.

"Could you just go and try the rope, Hazel-rah?" added Blackberry, when he had finished. "It may be too thick."

They went back to the punt.

"No, it's not," said Hazel, "and it's stretched tight, of course, which makes it much easier to gnaw. I can gnaw that, all right."

"Ya, ees goot," said Kehaar. "You go fine. But you do heem queek, ya? Maybe somet'ing change. Man come, take poat-you know?"

"There's nothing more to wait for," said Hazel. "Go on, Bigwig, straightaway, and may El-ahrairah go with you. And remember, you're the leader now. Send word by Kehaar what you want us to do; we shall all be here, ready to back you up."

Afterward, they all remembered how Bigwig had taken his orders. No one could say that he did not practice what he preached. He hesitated a few moments and then looked squarely at Hazel.

"It's sudden," he said. "I wasn't expecting it tonight. But that's all to the good-I hated waiting. See you later."

He touched his nose to Hazel's, turned and hopped away into the undergrowth. A few minutes later, guided by Kehaar, he was running up the open pasture north of the river, straight for the brick arch in the overgrown railway embankment and the fields that lay beyond.

34. General Woundwort

Dusk was falling on Efrafa. In the failing light, General Woundwort was watching the Near Hind Mark at silflay along the edge of the great pasture field that lay between the warren and the iron road. Most of the rabbits were feeding near the Mark holes, which were close beside the field, concealed among the trees and undergrowth bordering a lonely bridle path. A few, however, had ventured out into the field, to browse and play in the last of the sun. Further out still were the sentries of the Owsla, on the alert for the approach of men or elil and also for any rabbit who might stray too far to be able to get underground quickly if there should be an alarm.

Captain Chervil, one of the two officers of the Mark, had just returned from a round of his sentries and was talking to some of the does near the center of the Mark ground when he saw the General approaching. He looked quickly about to see whether anything was at fault. Since all seemed to be well, he began nibbling at a patch of sweet vernal with the best air of indifference that he could manage.

General Woundwort was a singular rabbit. Some three years before, he had been born-the strongest of a litter of five-in a burrow outside a cottage garden near Cole Henley. His father, a happy-go-lucky and reckless buck, had thought nothing of living close to human beings except that he would be able to forage in their garden in the early morning. He had paid dearly for his rashness. After two or three weeks of spoiled lettuces and nibbled cabbage plants, the cottager had lain in wait and shot him as he came through the potato patch at dawn. The same morning the man set to work to dig out the doe and her growing litter. Woundwort's mother escaped, racing across the kale field toward the downs, her kittens doing their best to follow her. None but Woundwort succeeded. His mother, bleeding from a shotgun pellet, made her way along the hedges in broad daylight, with Woundwort limping beside her.

It was not long before a weasel picked up the scent of the blood and followed it. The little rabbit cowered in the grass while his mother was killed before his eyes. He made no attempt to run, but the weasel, its hunger satisfied, left him alone and made off through the bushes. Several hours later a kind old schoolmaster from Overton, walking through the fields, came upon Woundwort nuzzling the cold, still body and crying. He carried him home to his own kitchen and saved his life, feeding him with milk from a nasal dropper until he was old enough to eat bran and greenstuff. But Woundwort grew up very wild and, like Cowper's hare, would bite when he could. In a month he was big and strong and had become savage. He nearly killed the schoolmaster's cat, which had found him at liberty in the kitchen and tried to torment him. One night, a week later, he tore the wire from the front of his hutch and escaped to the open country.

Most rabbits in his situation, lacking almost all experience of wild life, would have fallen victim at once to the elil: but not Woundwort. After a few days' wandering, he came upon a small warren and, snarling and clawing, forced them to accept him. Soon he had become Chief Rabbit, having killed both the previous Chief and a rival named Fiorin. In combat he was terrifying, fighting entirely to kill, indifferent to any wounds he received himself and closing with his adversaries until his weight overbore and exhausted them. Those who had no heart to oppose him were not long in feeling that here was a leader indeed.

Woundwort was ready to fight anything except a fox. One evening he attacked and drove off a foraging Aberdeen puppy. He was impervious to the fascination of the mustelidae, and hoped someday to kill a weasel, if not a stoat. When he had explored the limits of his own strength, he set to work to satisfy his longing for still more power in the only possible way-by increasing the power of the rabbits about him. He needed a bigger kingdom. Men were the great danger, but this could be circumvented by cunning and discipline. He left the small warren, taking his followers with him, and set out to look for a place suited to his purpose, where the very existence of rabbits could be concealed and extermination made very difficult.

Efrafa grew up round the crossing point of two green bridle paths, one of which (the east-to-west) was tunnel-like, bordered on both sides by a thick growth of trees and bushes. The immigrants, under Woundwort's direction, dug their holes between the roots of the trees, in the undergrowth and along the ditches. From the first the warren prospered. Woundwort watched over them with a tireless zeal that won their loyalty even while they feared him. When the does stopped digging, Woundwort himself went on with their work while they slept. If a man was coming, Woundwort spotted him half a mile away. He fought rats, magpies, gray squirrels and, once, a crow. When litters were kindled, he kept an eye on their growth, picked out the strongest youngsters for the Owsla and trained them himself. He would allow no rabbit to leave the warren. Quite early on, three who tried to do so were hunted down and forced to return.

As the warren grew, so Woundwort developed his system to keep it under control. Crowds of rabbits feeding at morning and evening were likely to attract attention. He devised the Marks, each controlled by its own officers and sentries, with feeding times changed regularly to give all a share of early morning and sunset-the favorite hours for silflay. All signs of rabbit life were concealed as closely as possible. The Owsla had privileges in regard to feeding, mating and freedom of movement. Any failure of duty on their part was liable to be punished by demotion and loss of privileges. For ordinary rabbits, the punishments were more severe.

When it was no longer possible for Woundwort to be everywhere, the Council was set up. Some of the members came from the Owsla, but others were selected solely for their loyalty or their cunning as advisers. Old Snowdrop was growing deaf, but no one knew more than he about organizing a warren for safety. On his advice, the runs and burrows of the various Marks were not connected underground, so that disease or poison, if they came, would spread less readily. Conspiracy would also spread less readily. To visit the burrows of another Mark was not allowed without an officer's permission. It was on Snowdrop's advice, too, that Woundwort at length ordered that the warren was not to extend further, on account of the risk of detection and the weakening of central control. He was persuaded only with difficulty, for the new policy frustrated his restless desire of power after power. This now needed another outlet, and soon after the warren had been stopped from growing he introduced the Wide Patrols.

The Wide Patrols began as mere forays or raids, led by Woundwort, into the surrounding country. He would simply pick four or five of the Owsla and take them out to look for trouble. On the first occasion they were lucky enough to find and kill a sick owl that had eaten a mouse that had eaten poison-dressed seed corn. On the next, they came upon two hlessil whom they compelled to return with them to join the warren. Woundwort was no mere bully. He knew how to encourage other rabbits and to fill them with a spirit of emulation. It was not long before his officers were asking to be allowed to lead patrols. Woundwort would give them tasks-to search for hlessil in a certain direction or to find out whether a particular ditch or barn contained rats which could later be attacked in force and driven out. Only from farms and gardens were they ordered to keep clear. One of these patrols, led by a certain Captain Orchis, discovered a small warren two miles to the east, beyond the Kingsclere-Overton road, on the outskirts of Nutley Copse. The General led an expedition against it and broke it up, the prisoners being brought back to Efrafa, where a few of them later rose to be Owsla members themselves.

As the months went on, the Wide Patrols became systematic; during summer and early autumn there were usually two or three out at a time. There came to be no other rabbits for a long way round Efrafa and any who might wander into the neighborhood by chance were quickly picked up. Casualties in the Wide Patrols were high, for the elil got to know that they went out. Often it would take all a leader's courage and skill to complete his task and bring his rabbits-or some of his rabbits-back to the warren. But the Owsla were proud of the risks they ran: and, besides, Woundwort was in the habit of going out himself to see how they were getting on. A patrol leader, more than a mile from Efrafa, limping up a hedgerow in the rain, would come upon the General squatting like a hare under a tussock of darnel, and find himself required then and there to report what he had been doing or why he was off his route. The patrols were the training grounds of cunning trackers, swift runners and fierce fighters, and the casualties-although there might be as many as five or six in a bad month-suited Woundwort's purpose, for numbers needed keeping down and there were always fresh vacancies in the Owsla, which the younger bucks did their best to be good enough to fill. To feel that rabbits were competing to risk their lives at his orders gratified Woundwort, although he believed-and so did his Council and his Owsla-that he was giving the warren peace and security at a price which was modest enough.

Nevertheless, this evening, as he came out from among the ash trees to talk to Captain Chervil, the General was feeling seriously concerned about several things. It was less and less easy to keep the size of the warren under control. Overcrowding was becoming a grave problem, and this despite the fact that many of the does were re-absorbing their litters before birth. While their doing so was all to the good in itself, some of them were growing restive and hard to manage. Not long ago a group of does had come before the Council and asked to leave the warren. They had been peaceable at first, offering to go as far away as the Council wished: but when it had become plain that their request was not going to be granted on any terms, they had become first petulant and then aggressive and the Council had had to take strong measures. There was still a good deal of bad feeling over the business. Then, in the third place, the Owsla had lately lost a certain amount of respect among the rank and file.

Four wandering rabbits-giving themselves out to be some kind of embassy from another warren-had been held and impressed into the Right Flank Mark. He had intended, later, to find out where they had come from. But they had succeeded in playing a very simple trick, bamboozling the Mark commander, attacking his sentries and escaping by night. Captain Bugloss, the officer responsible, had, of course, been demoted and expelled from the Owsla, but his disgrace, though very proper, only added to the General's difficulties. The truth was that Efrafa had become, for the moment, short of good officers. Ordinary Owsla-sentries-were not too hard to find, but officers were another matter and he had lost three in less than a month. Bugloss was as good as a casualty: he would never hold rank again. But, worse, Captain Charlock-a brave and resourceful rabbit-while leading the pursuit of the fugitives, had been run down on the iron road by a train: a further proof, if any were needed, of the wicked malice of men. Worst of all, only two nights ago a patrol which had been out to the north had returned with the shocking news that its leader, Captain Mallow, an officer of exceptional prestige and experience, had been killed by a fox. It was an odd business. The patrol had picked up the scent of a fairly large party of rabbits evidently coming toward Efrafa from the north. They had been following it but had not yet sighted their quarry when suddenly a strange rabbit had burst in upon them as they were nearing the edge of some woodland. They had, of course, tried to stop him and at that moment the fox, which had apparently been following him closely, had come from the open combe beyond and killed poor Mallow in an instant. All things considered, the patrol had come away in good order and Groundsel, the second in command, had done well. But nothing more had been seen of the strange rabbit; and the loss of Mallow, with nothing to show for it, had upset and demoralized the Owsla a good deal.

Other patrols had been sent out at once, but all that they had established was that the rabbits from the north had crossed the iron road and disappeared southward. It was intolerable that they should have passed so close to Efrafa and gone their way without being apprehended. Even now they might possibly be caught, if only there were a really enterprising officer to put in charge of the search. It would certainly need an enterprising officer-Captain Campion perhaps-for patrols seldom crossed the iron road, and the wet country beyond-the country near the river-was only partly known. He would have gone himself, but with the recent disciplinary troubles in the warren he could not take the risk; and Campion could hardly be spared just now. No-infuriating as it was, the strangers were best forgotten for the moment. The first thing was to replace the Owsla losses-and preferably with rabbits who knew how to deal ruthlessly with any further signs of dissension. They would simply have to promote the best they had got, draw their horns in for a time and concentrate on training until things got back to normal.

Woundwort greeted Captain Chervil rather abstractedly and went on turning the problem over in his mind.

"What are your sentries like, Chervil?" he asked at length. "Do I know any of them?"

"They're a good lot, sir," replied Chervil. "You know Marjoram: he's been on patrol with you as a runner. And I think you know Moneywort."

"Yes, I know them," said Woundwort, "but they wouldn't make officers. We need to replace Charlock and Mallow: that's what I'm getting at."

"That's difficult, sir," said Chervil. "That sort of rabbit doesn't hop out of the grass."

"Well, they've got to hop from somewhere," said Woundwort. "You'd better think about it and tell me any ideas that occur to you. Anyway, I want to go round your sentries now. Come with me, will you?"

They were about to set off when a third rabbit approached-none other than Captain Campion himself. It was Campion's principal duty to search the outskirts of Efrafa at morning and evening and to report anything new-the tire marks of a tractor in mud, the droppings of a sparrow hawk or the spreading of fertilizer on a field. An expert tracker, he missed little or nothing and was one of the very few rabbits for whom Woundwort felt a genuine respect.

"Do you want me?" said Woundwort, pausing.

"Well, I think so, sir," replied Campion. "We've picked up a hlessi and brought him in."

"Where was he?"

"Down by the arch, sir. Just this side of it."

"What was he doing?"

"Well, sir, he says he's come a long way on purpose to join Efrafa. That's why I thought you might like to see him."

"Wants to join Efrafa?" asked Woundwort, puzzled.

"That's what he says, sir."

"Why can't the Council see him tomorrow?"

"Just as you like, sir, of course. But he strikes me as being a bit out of the ordinary. I'd say, a distinctly useful rabbit."

"H'm," said Woundwort, considering. "Well, all right. I haven't got long, though. Where is he now?"

"At the Crixa, sir." Campion meant the crossing point of the two bridle paths, which was about fifty yards away, among the trees. "Two of my patrol are with him."

Woundwort made his way back to the Crixa. Chervil, being on duty with his Mark, remained where he was. Campion accompanied the General.

At this hour the Crixa was all green shade, with red gleams of sun that winked through the moving leaves. The damp grass along the edges of the paths was dotted with spikes of mauve bugle, and the sanicles and yellow archangels flowered thickly. Under an elder bush, on the far side of the track, two Owslafa, or Council police, were waiting; and with them was the stranger.

Woundwort saw at once what Campion had meant. The stranger was a big rabbit, heavy but alert, with a rugged, seasoned appearance and the look of a fighter. He had a curious thick growth of fur-a kind of topknot-on the crown of his head. He stared at Woundwort with a detached, appraising air which the General had not encountered for a very long time.

"Who are you?" said Woundwort.

"My name is Thlayli," replied the Stranger.

"Thlayli, sir," prompted Campion.

The stranger said nothing.

"The patrol brought you in, I'm told. What were you doing?"

"I've come to join Efrafa."

"Why?"

"I'm surprised you ask. It's your warren, isn't it? Is there anything odd about someone wanting to join?"

Woundwort was nonplused. He was no fool and it was, he could not help feeling, extremely odd that any right-minded rabbit should choose to walk into Efrafa of his own accord. But he could hardly say so.

"What can you do?"

"I can run and fight and spoil a story telling it. I've been an officer in an Owsla."

"Fight, can you? Could you fight him?" said Woundwort, looking at Campion.

"Certainly, if you wish." The stranger reared up and aimed a heavy cuff at Campion, who leaped back just in time.

"Don't be a fool," said Woundwort. "Sit down. Where were you in an Owsla?"

"Far off. The warren was destroyed by men, but I escaped. I've been wandering some time. It won't surprise you that I heard of Efrafa. I've come a long way to join it. I thought you might have some use for me."

"Are you alone?"

"I am now."

Woundwort considered again. It was likely enough that this rabbit had been an officer in an Owsla. Any Owsla would want him. If he was speaking the truth, he had had wits enough to escape the destruction of his warren and survive a long journey through open country. It must have been a very long journey, for there was no warren within the normal range of the Efrafan patrols.

"Well," he said at length, "I dare say we might be able to find some use for you, as you put it. Campion here will look after you tonight, and tomorrow morning you'll come before the Council. Meanwhile, don't start fighting, do you see? We can give you plenty to do without that."

"Very well."

The following morning, after the Council had discussed the predicament of the warren due to the recent losses, General Woundwort proposed that, for a start, they might do worse than try the big newcomer as an officer in the Near Hind Mark, under the instruction of Captain Chervil. The Council, having seen him, agreed. By ni-Frith Thlayli, still bleeding from the Mark gash inflicted in his left haunch, had taken up his duties.

35. Groping

"And then before the Mark silflay," said Chervil, "I always have a look at the weather. The previous Mark send a runner, of course, to say when they're going down, and he reports on the weather, but I always go and have a look for myself as well. In moonlight we put the sentries fairly close in and keep on the move ourselves to make sure no one goes too far. But in rain or darkness we send the Mark up in small groups, one after the other, and each group has a sentry in charge. In absolutely desperate weather we ask the General's permission to postpone the silflay."

"But do they often try to run away?" asked Bigwig. During the afternoon he had been up and down the runs and crowded burrows with Chervil and Avens, the other Mark officer, and had thought to himself that never in his life had he seen such a cheerless, dispirited lot of rabbits. "They don't strike me as a very difficult bunch."

"Most of them are no trouble, it's true," said Avens, "but you never know when trouble's coming. For instance, you'd have said there wasn't a more docile lot in Efrafa than the Right Flank. And then one day they get four hlessil wished on them by the Council, and the next evening Bugloss isn't very quick in the uptake for some reason, and suddenly these hlessil play a trick on him and bunk. And that's the end of him-to say nothing of poor old Charlock, killed on the iron road. When something like that happens, it happens like lightning and it isn't always planned: sometimes it's more like a frenzy. A rabbit tears away on impulse and if you don't knock him over quick, the next thing you know three more will be off after him. The only safe way is to watch all the time when they're above ground and do your own relaxing when you can. After all, that's what we're here for-that and the patrols."

"Now, about burying hraka," said Chervil, "you can't be too strict. If the General finds any hraka in the fields he'll stuff your tail down your throat. They always try to dodge burying, though. They want to be natural, the anti-social little beasts. They just don't realize that everyone's good depends on everyone's cooperation. What I do is to set three or four of them to dig a new trough in the ditch every day, as a punishment. You can nearly always find someone to punish if you try hard enough. Today's squad fills up yesterday's trough and digs another. There are special runs leading into the bottom of the ditch and the Mark have got to use those and no others when they go out to pass hraka. We keep a hraka sentry in the ditch to make sure they come back."

"How do you check them in after silflay?" asked Bigwig.

"Well, we know them all by sight," replied Chervil, "and we watch them go down. There are only two entrance holes for the Mark and one of us sits at each hole. Every rabbit knows which hole he has to use and I should certainly miss any of mine who didn't go down. The sentries come in last of all-I only call them in when I'm quite sure that all the Mark are down. And once they're down, of course, they can't very well get out, with a sentry at each hole. Digging I should hear. You're not allowed to dig in Efrafa without permission from the Council. The only really dangerous time is when there's an alarm-say, a man or a fox. Then we all bolt for the nearest hole, of course. So far, it doesn't seem to have occurred to anyone that he could bolt the other way and have quite a long start before he was missed. Still, no rabbit will bolt toward elil, and that's the real safeguard."

"Well, I admire your thoroughness," said Bigwig, thinking to himself that his secret task seemed to be even more hopeless than he had expected. "I'll get the hang of it all as soon as I can. When do we have the chance of a patrol?"

"I expect the General will take you on patrol himself, to begin with," said Avens. "He did me. You may not be so keen when you've had a day or two with him-you'll be worn out. Still, I must admit, Thlayli, you're a fine size, and if you've been living rough for some time you'll probably manage it all right."

At this moment a rabbit with a white scar across his throat came down the run.

"The Neck Mark's just going down, Captain Chervil, sir," he said. "It's a beautiful evening: I should make the most of it."

"I was wondering when you were going to show up," replied Chervil. "Tell Captain Sainfoin I'm bringing my Mark up at once."

Turning to one of his own sentries who was close by, Chervil told him to go round the burrows and send everyone up for silflay.

"Now," he said, "Avens, you go to the further hole as usual, and Thlayli can join me on the nearer one. We'll send four sentries out to the line, to start with, and when the Mark have all gone out we'll add four more and keep two in reserve. I'll see you in the usual place, by the big flint in the bank."

Bigwig followed Chervil along the run, down which came the scents of warm grass, clover and hop trefoil. He had found most of the runs closer and stuffier than he was used to, no doubt because there were so few holes into the open air. The prospect of an evening silflay, even in Efrafa, was pleasant. He thought of the beech leaves rustling above the far-off Honeycomb, and sighed. "I wonder how old Holly's getting on," he thought, "and whether I'll ever see him again: or Hazel either, for the matter of that. Well, I'll give these blighters something to think about before I've finished. I do feel lonely, though. How hard it is to carry a secret by yourself!"

They reached the mouth of the hole and Chervil went outside to look round. When he returned, he took up station at the top of the run. As Bigwig found a place alongside, he noticed for the first time, in the opposite wall of the run, a kind of recess like an open cave. In this, three rabbits were squatting. Those on either side had the tough, stolid look of members of the Owslafa. But it was at the one in the middle that he stared. This rabbit had very dark fur-almost black. But this was not the most remarkable thing about him. He was dreadfully mutilated. His ears were nothing but shapeless shreds, ragged at the edges, seamed with ill-knit scars and beaded here and there with lumps of proud, bare flesh. One eyelid was misshapen and closed askew. Despite the cool, exciting air of the July evening, he seemed apathetic and torpid. He kept his gaze fixed on the ground and blinked continually. After a time he lowered his head and rubbed his nose on his forepaws in a listless manner. Then he scratched his neck and settled down in his former drooping position.

Bigwig, his warm, impulsive nature stirred by curiosity and pity, went across the run.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"My name is Blackavar, sir," replied the rabbit. He did not look up and spoke without expression, as though he had answered this question many times before.

"Are you going to silflay?" said Bigwig. No doubt, he thought, this was some hero of the warren, wounded in a great fight and now infirm, whose past services merited an honorable escort when he went out.

"No, sir," answered the rabbit.

"Why ever not?" said Bigwig. "It's a lovely evening."

"I don't silflay at this time, sir."

"Then why are you here?" asked Bigwig, with his usual directness.

"The Mark that has the evening silflay, sir," began the rabbit. "The Mark that has-they come-I-" He hesitated and fell silent.

One of the Owslafa spoke. "Get on with it," he said.

"I come here for the Mark to see me," said the rabbit in his low, drained voice. "Every Mark should see how I have been punished as I deserve for my treachery in trying to leave the warren. The Council were merciful-the Council were merciful-the Council-I can't remember it, sir, I really can't," he burst out, turning to the sentry who had spoken. "I can't seem to remember anything."

The sentry said nothing. Bigwig, after staring in shocked silence for a few moments, rejoined Chervil.

"He's supposed to tell everybody who asks," said Chervil, "but he's getting sort of stupid after half a month of it. He tried to run away. Campion caught him and brought him back and the Council ripped up his ears and said he had to be shown at every morning and evening silflay, as an example to the others. But if you ask me, he won't last much longer. He'll meet a blacker rabbit than himself one of these nights."

Bigwig shuddered, partly at Chervil's tone of callous indifference and partly at his own memories. The Mark were filing up now and he watched as they went past, each darkening the entrance for a moment before hopping out under the hawthorn. It was clear that Chervil prided himself on knowing his rabbits by name. He spoke to most of them and was at pains to show that he had some knowledge of their personal lives. It seemed to Bigwig that the answers he got were not particularly warm or friendly, but he did not know whether to put that down to dislike of Chervil or merely to the lack of spirit that seemed to be common to the rank and file in Efrafa. He was closely on the watch-as Blackberry had advised him to be-for any signs of disaffection or rebellion, but he could see little grounds for hope in the expressionless faces that went by. At the end came a little group of three or four does, talking among themselves.

"Well, are you getting on all right with your new friends, Nelthilta?" said Chervil to the first, as she passed him.

The doe, a pretty, long-nosed rabbit not more than three months old, stopped and looked at him.

"You'll get on yourself one day, Captain, I dare say," she replied. "Like Captain Mallow-he got on, you know. Why don't you send some does on Wide Patrol?"

She paused for Chervil to reply, but he made no answer and did not speak to the does who followed Nelthilta out into the field.

"What did she mean by that?" asked Bigwig.

"Well, there's been trouble, you know," said Chervil. "A bunch of does in the Near Fore started a row at a Council meeting. The General said they must be broken up and we had a couple sent to us. I've been keeping an eye on them. They're no trouble themselves, but Nelthilta's taken up with them and it seems to have made her cheeky and resentful: sort of thing you saw just now. I don't really mind that-it shows they feel the Owsla's on top. If the young does became quiet and polite I should be much more worried: I should wonder what they were up to. All the same, Thlayli, I'd like you to do what you can to get to know those particular does and bring them a bit more into line."

"Right," said Bigwig. "By the way, what are the rules about mating?"

"Mating?" said Chervil. "Well, if you want a doe, you have one-any doe in the Mark, that is. We're not officers for nothing, are we? The does are under orders and none of the bucks can stop you. That just leaves you and me and Avens; and we shall hardly quarrel. There are plenty of does, after all."

"I see," said Bigwig. "Well, I'll silflay now. Unless you've got any other ideas, I'll go and talk to some of the Mark and then go round the sentries and get the lie of the land. What about Blackavar?"

"Leave him," said Chervil. "He's none of our business. The Owslafa will keep him here until the Mark come back and after that they'll take him away."

Bigwig made his way into the field, conscious of the wary glances of the rabbits he passed. He felt perplexed and apprehensive. How was he to begin his dangerous task? Begin he must, in one way or another, for Kehaar had made it clear that he was not ready to wait. There was nothing for it but to take a chance and trust somebody. But whom? A warren like this must be full of spies. Probably only General Woundwort knew who the spies were. Was there a spy watching him now?

"I shall just have to trust my feelings," he thought. "I'll go round the place a bit and see if I can make any friends. But I know one thing-if I do succeed in getting any does out of here, I'll take that poor wretched Blackavar with me as well. Frith on a bridge! It makes me angry just to think of him being forced to sit there like that. General Woundwort indeed! A gun's too good for him."

Nibbling and pondering, he moved slowly over the open meadow in the evening sun. After a while he found that he was approaching a small hollow, much like the one on Watership Down where he and Silver had found Kehaar. In this hollow there were four does, with their backs to him. He recognized them as the little group who had gone out last. They had evidently finished the hungry, intent stage of feeding and were browsing and talking at leisure, and he could see that one of them had the attention of the other three. Even more than most rabbits, Bigwig loved a story and now he felt attracted by the prospect of hearing something new in this strange warren. He moved quietly up to the edge of the hollow just as the doe began to speak.

At once he realized that this was no story. Yet he had heard the like before, somewhere. The rapt air, the rhythmic utterance, the intent listeners-what was it they recalled? Then he remembered the smell of carrots, and Silverweed dominating the crowd in the great burrow. But these verses went to his heart as Silverweed's had not.

The doe was silent and her three companions said nothing: but their stillness showed plainly enough that she had spoken for all of them. A flock of starlings passed overhead, chattering and whistling, and a liquid dropping fell into the grass among the little group, but none moved or startled. Each seemed taken up with the same melancholy thoughts-thoughts which, however sad, were at least far from Efrafa.

Bigwig's spirit was as tough as his body and quite without sentimentality, but, like most creatures who have experienced hardship and danger, he could recognize and respect suffering when he saw it. He was accustomed to sizing up other rabbits and deciding what they were good for. It struck him that these does were not far from the end of their powers. A wild animal that feels that it no longer has any reason to live reaches in the end a point when its remaining energies may actually be directed toward dying. It was this state of mind that Bigwig had mistakenly attributed to Fiver in the warren of the snares. Since then his judgment had matured. He felt that despair was not far from these does; and from all that he had heard of Efrafa, both from Holly and from Chervil, he could understand why. He knew that the effects of overcrowding and tension in a warren show themselves first in the does. They become infertile and aggressive. But if aggression cannot mend their troubles, then often they begin to drift toward the only other way out. He wondered what point on this dismal path these particular does had reached.

He hopped down into the hollow. The does, disturbed from their thoughts, looked at him resentfully and drew back.

"I know you're Nelthilta," said Bigwig to the pretty young doe who had retorted to Chervil in the run. "But what's your name?" he went on, turning to the doe beside her.

After a pause, she answered reluctantly, "Thethuthinnang, sir.[14]"

"And yours?" said Bigwig, to the doe who had spoken the verses.

She turned to him a look of such wretchedness, so full of accusation and suffering, that it was all he could do not to beg her then and there to believe that he was her secret friend and that he hated Efrafa and the authority which he represented. Nelthilta's rejoinder to Chervil in the run had been full of hatred, but this doe's gaze spoke of wrongs beyond her power to express. As Bigwig stared back at her, he suddenly recalled Holly's description of the great yellow hrududu that had torn open the earth above the destroyed warren. "That might have met a look like this," he thought. Then the doe answered, "My name is Hyzenthlay, sir."

"Hyzenthlay?" said Bigwig, startled out of his self-possession. "Then it was you who-" He stopped. It might be dangerous to ask whether she remembered speaking to Holly. But whether she did or not, here, evidently, was the rabbit who had told Holly and his companions about the troubles of Efrafa and the discontent of the does. If he remembered Holly's story rightly, she had already made some sort of attempt to leave the warren. "But," he thought, as he met once more her desolate eyes, "what is she good for now?"

"May we have permission to go, sir?" asked Nelthilta. "The company of officers absolutely overpowers us, you see: we find a little of it goes an awfully long way."

"Oh-yes-certainly-by all means," replied Bigwig in confusion. He remained where he was as the does hopped away, Nelthilta raising her voice to remark, "What a great oaf!" and half looking round in the evident hope that he would take her up.

"Oh, well, there's one of them with some spirit left, anyway," he thought, as he made his way out to the sentries.

He spent some time talking to the sentries and learning how they were organized. It was a depressingly efficient system. Each sentry could reach his neighbor in a matter of moments; and the appropriate stamping signal-for they had more than one-would bring out the officers and the reserves. If necessary, the Owslafa could be alerted in almost no time at all and so could Captain Campion, or whatever officer might be patrolling the outskirts of the warren. Since only one Mark fed at a time, there could hardly be any confusion about where to go if an alarm were given. One of the sentries, Marjoram, told him about the attempted escape by Blackavar.

"He pretended to feed his way out as far as he could," said Marjoram, "and then he made a dash. He actually managed to knock down two sentries who tried to stop him; and I doubt whether anyone on his own has ever done as much as that. He ran like mad, but Campion had got the alarm, you see, and he simply moved round and intercepted him further down the fields. Of course, if he hadn't smashed up the sentries, the Council might have let him off more lightly."

"Do you like the warren life?" asked Bigwig.

"It's not too bad now I'm in the Owsla," answered Marjoram, "and if I can get to be an officer it'll be better still. I've done two Wide Patrols now-they're the thing for getting yourself noticed. I can track and fight as well as most, but of course they want more than that from an officer. I think our officers are a strong bunch, don't you?"

"Yes, I do," said Bigwig with feeling. It struck him that Marjoram evidently did not know that he himself was a newcomer to Efrafa. At any rate, he showed neither jealousy nor resentment. Bigwig was beginning to realize that in this place nobody was told more than was good for him, or got to know much except what was before his nose. Marjoram probably supposed that he, Bigwig, had been promoted out of another Mark.

As darkness fell, just before the end of the silflay, Captain Campion came up the field with a patrol of three and Chervil ran out to meet him on the sentry line. Bigwig joined them and listened to the talk. He gathered that Campion had been out as far as the iron road but had found nothing unusual.

"Don't you ever go beyond the iron road?" he asked.

"Not very often," answered Campion. "It's wet, you know-bad rabbit country. I have been there, but on these ordinary circuit patrols I'm really looking nearer home. My job is partly to notice anything new that the Council ought to know about, and partly to make sure we pick up anyone who bolts. Like that miserable Blackavar-and he gave me a bite I shan't forget, before I got him down. On a fine evening like this, I generally go down as far as the bank of the iron road and then work along this side of it. Or sometimes I go out in the other direction, as far as the barn. It all depends what's wanted. By the way, I saw the General earlier this evening and I rather think he means to take you on patrol in two or three days' time, as soon as you've settled down and your Mark have come off the dawn and evening silflay."

"Why wait for that?" said Bigwig with all the enthusiasm he could assume. "Why not sooner?"

"Well, a Mark generally keeps a full Owsla when it's on dawn and evening silflay. The rabbits are more lively at those times, you see, and need more supervision. But a Mark that's on ni-Frith and fu-Inlé silflay can generally spare Owsla for a Wide Patrol. Now I'll leave you here. I've got to take my lot to the Crixa and report to the General."

As soon as the Mark had gone underground and Blackavar had been taken away by his escort, Bigwig excused himself to Chervil and Avens and went to his own burrow. Although the rank and file were cramped underground, the sentries had two large, roomy burrows to themselves, while each officer had a private burrow. By himself at last, Bigwig settled down to think over his problem.

The difficulties were bewildering. He was fairly certain that with Kehaar's help he himself could escape from Efrafa whenever he wished. But how in the world was he to bring a bunch of does out-supposing that any were ready to try it? If he took it upon himself to call the sentries in during a silflay, Chervil would see in a matter of moments what he had done. The only possibility, then, was to make the break-out during the day: to wait until Chervil was asleep and then order a sentry to leave his post at the mouth of one of the holes. Bigwig considered. He could see no flaw in this idea. Then the thought came to him, "And what about Blackavar?" Blackavar presumably spent the day under guard in some special burrow. Probably hardly anyone knew where-no one knew anything in Efrafa-and certainly no one would tell. So he would have to leave Blackavar: no realistic plan could include him.

"I'll be jiggered if I leave him," muttered Bigwig to himself. "I know Blackberry would say I was a fool. Still, he's not here and I'm doing this myself. But suppose I wreck the whole thing because of Blackavar? Oh, Frith in a barn! What a business!"

He thought until he realized that he was thinking in circles. After a time, he fell asleep. When he woke, he could tell that it was moonlight outside, fine and still. It occurred to him that perhaps he might start his venture from the other end-by persuading some of the does to join him and working out a plan afterward, perhaps with their help. He went down the run until he came upon a young rabbit sleeping as best he could outside an overcrowded burrow. He woke him.

"Do you know Hyzenthlay?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, sir," replied the rabbit, with a rather pathetic attempt to sound brisk and ready.

"Go and find her and tell her to come to my burrow," said Bigwig. "No one else is to come with her. Do you understand?"

"Yes, sir."

When the youngster had scurried off, Bigwig returned to his burrow, wondering whether there would be any suspicion. It seemed unlikely. From what Chervil had said, it was common enough for Efrafan officers to send for does. If he were questioned he had only to play up. He lay down and waited.

In the dark, a rabbit came slowly up the run and stopped at the entrance to the burrow. There was a pause.

"Hyzenthlay?" said Bigwig.

"I am Hyzenthlay."

"I want to talk to you," said Bigwig.

"I am in the Mark, sir, and under your orders. But you have made a mistake."

"No, I haven't," replied Bigwig. "You needn't be afraid. Come in here, close beside me."

Hyzenthlay obeyed. He could feel her fast pulse. Her body was tense: her eyes were closed and her claws dug into the floor.

"Hyzenthlay," whispered Bigwig in her ear, "listen carefully. You remember that many days ago now, four rabbits came to Efrafa in the evening. One had very pale gray fur and one had a healed rat bite in his foreleg. You talked with their leader-his name was Holly. I know what he told you."

She turned her head in fear. "How do you know?"

"Never mind. Only listen to me."

Then Bigwig spoke of Hazel and Fiver; of the destruction of the Sandleford warren and the journey to Watership Down. Hyzenthlay neither moved nor interrupted.

"The rabbits who talked to you that evening," said Bigwig, "who told you about the warren that was destroyed and of how they had come to ask for does from Efrafa-do you know what became of them?"

Hyzenthlay's reply was no more than the faintest murmur in his ear.

"I know what I heard. They escaped the next evening. Captain Charlock was killed pursuing them."

"And was any other patrol sent after them, Hyzenthlay? The next day, I mean?"

"We heard that there was no officer to spare, with Bugloss under arrest and Charlock dead."

"Those rabbits returned to us safely. One of them is not far away now, with our Chief Rabbit and several more. They are cunning and resourceful. They are waiting for me to bring does out of Efrafa-as many as I can get to come. I shall be able to send them a message tomorrow morning."

"How?"

"By a bird-if all goes well." Bigwig told her about Kehaar. When he had finished, Hyzenthlay made no reply and he could not tell whether she was considering all that he had said or whether fear and disbelief had so troubled her that she did not know what to say. Did she think he was a spy trying to trap her? Did she perhaps wish only that he would let her go away? At last he said,

"Do you believe me?"

"Yes, I believe you."

"Might I not be a spy sent by the Council?"

"You are not. I can tell."

"How?"

"You spoke of your friend-the one who knew that that warren was a bad place. He is not the only such rabbit. Sometimes I can tell these things, too: but not often now, for my heart is in the frost."

"Then will you join me-and persuade your friends as well? We need you: Efrafa doesn't need you."

Again she was silent. Bigwig could hear a worm moving in the earth nearby and faintly down the tunnel came the sound of some small creature pattering through the grass outside. He waited quietly, knowing that it was vital that he should not upset her.

At last she spoke again, so low in his ear that the words seemed barely more than broken cadences of breathing.

"We can escape from Efrafa. The danger is very great, but in that we can succeed. It is beyond that I cannot see. Confusion and fear at nightfall-and then men, men, it is all things of men! A dog-a rope that snaps like a dry branch. A rabbit-no, it is not possible! — a rabbit that rides in a hrududu! Oh, I have become foolish-tales for kittens on a summer evening. No, I cannot see as I did once: it is like the shapes of trees beyond a field of rain."

"Well, you'd better come and meet this friend of mine," said Bigwig. "He talks just like that, and I've come to trust him, so I trust you, too. If you feel we're going to succeed, that's fine. But what I'm asking is whether you'll bring your friends to join us."

After another silence, Hyzenthlay said, "My courage-my spirit: it's so much less than it was. I'm afraid to let you rely on me."

"I can tell that. What is it that's worn you down? Weren't you the leader of the does who went to the Council?"

"There was myself and Thethuthinnang. I don't know what's happened to the other does who were with us. We were all in the Right Fore Mark then, you know. I've still got the Right Fore mark, but I've been marked again since. Blackavar-you saw him?"

"Yes, of course."

"He was in that Mark. He was our friend and encouraged us. Only a night or two after the does went up to speak to the Council, he tried to run away, but he was caught. You've seen what they did to him. That was the same evening that your friends came: and the next night they escaped. After that, the Council sent for us does once more. The General said that no one else would have the chance to run away. We were to be split up among the Marks, no more than two to each Mark. I don't know why they left Thethuthinnang and me together. Perhaps they didn't stop to think. Efrafa's like that, you know. The order was 'Two to each Mark, so as long as the order was carried out it didn't particularly matter which two. Now I'm frightened and I feel the Council are always watching."

"Yes, but I'm here now," said Bigwig.

"The Council are very cunning."

"They'll need to be. We've got some rabbits who are far more cunning, believe me. El-ahrairah's Owsla, no less. But tell me-was Nelthilta with you when you went to the Council?"

"Oh, no, she was born here, in the Near Hind. She's got spirit, you know, but she's young and silly. It excites her to let everyone see that she's a friend of rabbits who are thought of as rebels. She doesn't realize what she's doing or what the Council are really like. It's all a kind of game to her-to cheek the officers and so on. One day she'll go too far and get us into trouble again. She couldn't be trusted with a secret, on any account."

"How many does in this Mark would be ready to join an escape?"

"Hrair. There's a great deal of discontent, you know. But, Thlayli, they mustn't be told until a very short time before we run-not just Nelthilta, but all of them. No one can keep a secret in a warren and there are spies everywhere. You and I must make a plan ourselves and tell no one but Thethuthinnang. She and I will get enough does to come with us when the time comes."

Bigwig realized that he had stumbled, quite unexpectedly, upon what he needed most of all: a strong, sensible friend who would think on her own account and help to bear his burden.

"I'll leave it to you to pick the does," he said. "I can make the chance to run if you'll have them ready to take it."

"When?"

"Sunset will be best, and the sooner the better. Hazel and the others will meet us and fight any patrol that follows. But the main thing is that the bird will fight for us. Even Woundwort won't be expecting that."

Hyzenthlay was silent again and Bigwig realized with admiration that she was going over what he had said and searching for flaws.

"But how many can the bird fight?" she said at last. "Can he drive them all away? This is going to be a big break-out and, make no mistake, Thlayli, the General himself will be after us with the best rabbits he has. We can't go on running away forever. They won't lose track of us and sooner or later they'll overtake us."

"I told you our rabbits were more cunning than the Council. I don't think you'd really understand this part, however carefully I explained. Have you ever seen a river?"

"What is a river?"

"Well, there you are. I can't explain. But I promise you we shan't have to run far. We shall actually disappear before the Owsla's eyes-if they're there to see. I must say I'm looking forward to that."

She said nothing and he added, "You must trust me, Hyzenthlay. Upon my life, we're going to vanish. I'm not deceiving you."

"If you were wrong, those who died quickly would be the lucky ones."

"No one's going to die. My friends have prepared a trick that El-ahrairah himself would be proud of."

"If it is to be at sunset," she said, "it must be tomorrow or the next night. In two days the Mark loses the evening silflay. You know that?"

"Yes, I'd heard. Tomorrow, then. Why wait longer? But there is one other thing. We're going to take Blackavar." "Blackavar? How? He is guarded by Council police."

"I know. It adds very much to the risk, but I've decided that I can't leave him behind. What I mean to do is this. Tomorrow evening, when the Mark silflay, you and Thethuthinnang must keep the does near you-as many as you've got together-ready to run. I shall meet the bird a little way out in the meadow and tell him to attack the sentries as soon as he sees me go back into the hole. Then I shall come back and deal with Blackavar's guards myself. They won't be expecting anything of the sort. I'll have him out in a moment and join you. There'll be complete confusion and in that confusion we'll run. The bird will attack anyone who tries to follow us. Remember, we go straight down to the great arch in the iron road. My friends will be waiting there. You've only to follow me-I'll lead the way."

"Captain Campion may be on patrol."

"Oh, I do hope he is," said Bigwig. "I really do."

"Blackavar may not run at once. He will be as startled as the guards."

"Is it possible to warn him?"

"No. His guards never leave him and they take him out to silflay alone."

"For how long will he have to live like that?"

"When he has been to every Mark in turn, the Council will kill him. We all feel sure of that."

"Then that settles it. I won't go without him."

"Thlayli, you are very brave. Are you cunning, too? All our lives will depend on you tomorrow."

"Well, can you see anything wrong with the plan?"

"No, but I am only a doe who has never been out of Efrafa. Suppose something unexpected happens?"

"Risk is risk. Don't you want to get out and come and live on the high downs with us? Think of it!"

"Oh, Thlayli! Shall we mate with whom we choose and dig our own burrows and bear our litters alive?"

"You shall: and tell stories in the Honeycomb and silflay whenever you feel like it. It's a fine life, I promise you."

"I'll come! I'll run any risk."

"What a stroke of luck that you should be in this Mark," said Bigwig. "Before this talk with you tonight, I was at my wits' end, wondering whatever I was going to do."

"I'll go back to the lower burrows now, Thlayli. Some of the other rabbits are bound to wonder why you sent for me. It's not mating time with me, you see. If I go now, we can say you made a mistake and were disappointed. Don't forget to say that."

"I won't. Yes, go now, and have them ready at silflay tomorrow evening, I shan't fail you."

When she had gone, Bigwig felt desperately tired and lonely. He tried to hold in his mind that his friends were not far off and that he would see them again in less than a day. But he knew that all Efrafa lay between himself and Hazel. His thoughts broke up into the dismal fancies of anxiety. He fell into a half-dream, in which Captain Campion turned into a seagull and flew screaming over the river, until he woke in panic: and dozed again, to see Captain Chervil driving Blackavar before him toward a shining wire in the grass. And over all, as big as a horse in a field, aware of all that passed from one end of the world to the other, brooded the gigantic figure of General Woundwort. At last, worn out with his apprehensions, he passed into a deep sleep where even his fear could not follow, and lay without sound or movement in the solitary burrow.

36. Approaching Thunder

Bigwig wavered gradually up from sleep, like a bubble of marsh gas from the bed of a still stream. There was another rabbit beside him in the burrow-a buck. He started up at once and said, "Who is it?"

"Avens," replied the other. "Time for silflay, Thlayli. Larks have gone up. You're a sound sleeper."

"I dare say," said Bigwig. "Well, I'm ready." He was about to lead the way down the run, but Avens' next words brought him to a halt.

"Who's Fiver?" said Avens.

Bigwig grew tense. "What did you say?"

"I said, who's Fiver?"

"How should I know?"

"Well, you were talking in your sleep. You kept saying, 'Ask Fiver, ask Fiver. I wondered who he was."

"Oh, I see. A rabbit I knew once. He used to foretell the weather and so on."

"Well, he could do it now, then. Can you smell the thunder?"

Bigwig sniffed. Mixed with the scents of grass and cattle came the warm, thick smell of a heavy cloud mass, still far off. He perceived it uneasily. Almost all animals are disturbed by the approach of thunder, which oppresses them with its mounting tension and breaks the natural rhythm by which they live. Bigwig's inclination was to go back to his burrow, but he had little doubt that no mere trifle like a thundery morning would be allowed to interfere with the timetable of an Efrafan Mark.

He was right. Chervil was already at the entrance, squatting opposite Blackavar and his escort. He looked round as his officers came up the run.

"Come on, Thlayli," he said. "Sentries are out already. Does the thunder worry you?"

"It does rather," replied Bigwig.

"It won't break today," said Chervil. "It's a long way off yet. I'd give it until tomorrow evening. Anyway, don't let the Mark see it affects you. Nothing's to be altered unless the General says so."

"Couldn't wake him up," said Avens, with a touch of malice. "There was a doe in your burrow last night, Thlayli, wasn't there?"

"Oh, was there?" said Chervil. "Which one?"

"Hyzenthlay," replied Bigwig.

"Oh, the marli tharn,[15]" said Chervil. "Funny, I didn't think she was ready."

"She wasn't," said Bigwig. "I made a mistake. But if you remember, you asked me to do what I could to get to know the awkward squad and bring them a bit more under control, so I kept her talking for a time, just the same."

"Get anywhere?"

"Hard to say, really," said Bigwig, "but I'll keep at it."

He spent the time while the Mark went out in deciding upon the best and quickest way to enter the hole and attack Blackavar's escort. He would have to put one of them out of action in no time at all and then go straight for the other, who would be that much less unprepared. If he had to fight him, it would be better to avoid doing it between Blackavar and the mouth of the hole, for Blackavar would be as bewildered as the rest and might bolt back down the run. If he was going to bolt anywhere he must bolt outward. Of course, with any luck, the second guard might make off underground without fighting at all, but one could not count on that. Efrafan Owslafa were not given to running away.

As he went out into the field, he wondered whether he would be spotted by Kehaar. The arrangement had been that Kehaar would find him whenever he might come above ground on the second day.

He need not have worried. Kehaar had been over Efrafa since before dawn. As soon as he saw the Mark come up, he alighted a little way out in the field, halfway between the undergrowth and the sentry line, and began pecking about in the grass. Bigwig nibbled his way slowly toward him and then settled down to feed without a glance in his direction. After a while, he sensed that Kehaar was behind him, a little to one side.

"Meester Pigvig, I t'ink ees not goot ve talk much. Meester 'Azel, 'e say vat you do? Vat you vant?"

"I want two things, Kehaar-both at sunset tonight. First, our rabbits must be down by the big arch. I shall come through that arch with the does. If we're pursued, you and Hazel and the rest must be ready to fight. The boat thing, is it still there?"

"Ya, ya, men no take heem. I tell Meester 'Azel vat you say."

"Good. Now listen, Kehaar, this is the second thing, and it's terribly important. You see those rabbits out beyond us, in the field? They're the sentries. At sunset, you meet me here. Then I shall run back to those trees and go down a hole. As soon as you see me go in, attack the sentries-terrify them, drive them away. If they won't run, hurt them. They must be driven off. You'll see me come out again almost at once and then the does-the mothers-will start running with me and we'll go straight down to the arch. But we may very well be attacked on the way. If that happens, can you pile in again?"

"Ya, ya. I fly at dem-dey no stop you."

"Splendid. That's it, then. Hazel and the others-are they all right?"

"Fine-fine. Dey say you damn good fella. Meester Pluebell, 'e say to pring one mudder for everyone else and two for 'im."

Bigwig was trying to think of some appropriate reply to this when he saw Chervil running across the grass toward him. At once, without speaking again to Kehaar, he took a few hops in Chervil's direction and began biting busily at a patch of clover. As Chervil came up, Kehaar flew low above their heads and disappeared over the trees.

Chervil looked after the flying gull and then turned to Bigwig.

"Aren't you afraid of those birds?" he asked.

"Not particularly," answered Bigwig.

"They sometimes attack mice, you know, and rabbit kittens, too," said Chervil. "You were taking a risk, feeding there. Why were you so careless?"

For answer, Bigwig sat up and gave Chervil a playful cuff, hard enough to roll him over.

"That's why," he said.

Chervil got up with a sulky air. "All right, so you're heavier than I am," he said. "But you've got to learn, Thlayli, that there's more than weight to being an Efrafan officer. And it doesn't alter the fact that those birds can be dangerous. Anyway, it's not the season for them and that's odd, for a start. It'll have to be reported."

"Whatever for?"

"Because it's unusual. Everything unusual has to be reported. If we don't report it and someone else does, nice fools we shall look when we have to say we saw it. We couldn't say we didn't-several of the Mark have seen it. In fact, I shall go and report it now. Silflay's nearly over, so if I'm not back in time, you and Avens had better see the Mark underground yourselves."

As soon as Chervil had left him, Bigwig went to look for Hyzenthlay. He found her in the hollow with Thethuthinnang. Most of the Mark did not appear to be unduly affected by the thunder, which was still distant, as Chervil had said. The two does, however, were subdued and nervous. Bigwig told them what he had arranged with Kehaar.

"But will this bird really attack the sentries?" asked Thethuthinnang. "I've never heard of anything like that."

"It will, I promise you. Get the does together as soon as silflay begins this evening. When I come out with Blackavar, the sentries will be running for cover."

"And which way do we run?" asked Thethuthinnang.

Bigwig took them well out into the field, so that they could see the distant arch in the embankment about four hundred yards away.

"We're bound to meet Campion," said Thethuthinnang. "You know that?"

"I believe he had some trouble stopping Blackavar," replied Bigwig. "So I'm sure he won't be good enough for me and the bird. Look, there's Avens bringing in the sentries-we'll have to go. Now, don't worry. Chew your pellets and get some sleep. If you can't sleep, sharpen up your claws: you may need them."

The Mark went underground and Blackavar was taken away by the escort. Bigwig returned to his burrow and tried to put the coming evening out of his mind. After some time he gave up the idea of spending the day alone. He made a round of the lower burrows, joined a game of bob-stones, heard two stories and told one himself, passed hraka in the ditch and then, on an impulse, went to Chervil and obtained his consent to visit another Mark. He wandered across the Crixa, found himself in the middle of the ni-Frith silflay with the Left Flank Mark and went underground with them. Their officers shared a single large burrow and here he met some experienced veterans and listened with interest to their stories of Wide Patrols and other exploits. In the mid-afternoon he came back to the Near Hind relaxed and confident, and slept until one of the sentries woke him for silflay.

He went up the run. Blackavar was already slumped in his alcove. Squatting beside Chervil, Bigwig watched the Mark go out. Hyzenthlay and Thethuthinnang passed him without a glance. They looked tense but steady. Chervil followed the last rabbit.

Bigwig waited until he was sure that Chervil had had time to get well away from the hole. Then, with a last, quick look to where Blackavar was sitting, he went out himself. The bright sunset dazzled him and he sat up on his hind legs, blinking and combing the fur along one side of his face as his eyes got accustomed to the light. A few moments later he saw Kehaar come flying across the field.

"This is it, then," he said to himself. "Here we go."

At that moment a rabbit spoke from behind him.

"Thlayli, I want a few words with you. Just come back under the bushes, will you?"

Bigwig dropped on his front paws and looked round.

It was General Woundwort.

37. The Thunder Builds Up

Bigwig's first impulse was to fight Woundwort on the spot. He realized immediately that this would be futile and would only bring the whole place round his ears. There was nothing to do but obey. He followed Woundwort through the undergrowth and into the shade of the bridle path. Despite the sunset, the evening seemed heavy with cloud and among the trees it was sultry and gray. The thunder was building up. He looked at Woundwort and waited.

"You were out of the Near Hind burrows this afternoon?" began Woundwort.

"Yes, sir," replied Bigwig. He still disliked addressing Woundwort as "sir," but since he was supposed to be an Efrafan officer, he could not very well do otherwise. However, he did not add that Chervil had given him permission. He had not been accused of anything as yet.

"Where did you go?"

Bigwig swallowed his annoyance. No doubt Woundwort knew perfectly well where he had been.

"I went to the Left Flank Mark, sir. I was in their burrows."

"Why did you go?"

"To pass the time and learn something from listening to the officers."

"Did you go anywhere else?"

"No, sir."

"You met one of the Left Flank Owsla-a rabbit named Groundsel."

"Very likely. I didn't learn all their names."

"Have you ever seen that rabbit before?"

"No, sir. How could I?"

There was a pause.

"May I ask what this is all about, sir?" said Bigwig.

"I'll ask the questions," said Woundwort. "Groundsel has seen you before. He knew you by the fur on your head. Where do you think he saw you?"

"I've no idea."

"Have you ever run from a fox?"

"Yes, sir, a few days ago, while I was coming here."

"You led it onto some other rabbits and it killed one of them. Is that correct?"

"I didn't intend to lead it onto them. I didn't know they were there."

"You didn't tell us anything about this?"

"It never occurred to me. There's nothing wrong in running from a fox."

"You've caused the death of an Efrafan officer."

"Quite by accident. And the fox might have got him anyway, even if I'd not been there."

"It wouldn't," said Woundwort. "Mallow wasn't the rabbit to run onto a fox. Foxes aren't dangerous to rabbits who know their business."

"I'm sorry the fox got him, sir. It was a stroke of very bad luck."

Woundwort stared at him out of his great, pale eyes.

"Then one more question, Thlayli. That patrol was on the track of a band of rabbits-strangers. What do you know about them?"

"I saw their tracks too, about that time. I can't tell you any more than that."

"You weren't with them?"

"If I'd been with them, sir, would I have come to Efrafa?"

"I told you I'd ask the questions. You can't tell me where they might have gone?"

"I'm afraid I can't, sir."

Woundwort stopped staring and sat silent for some time. Bigwig felt that the General was waiting for him to ask if that was all and whether he could now go. He determined to remain silent himself.

"Now there's another thing," said Woundwort at last. "About this white bird in the field this morning. You're not afraid of these birds?"

"No, sir. I've never heard of one hurting a rabbit."

"But they have been known to, for all your wide experience, Thlayli. Anyway, why did you go near it?"

Bigwig thought quickly. "To tell you the truth, sir, I think I may have been trying to make an impression on Captain Chervil."

"Well, you could have a worse reason. But if you're going to impress anyone, you'd better start with me. The day after tomorrow I'm taking out a Wide Patrol myself. It will cross the iron road and try to pick up traces of those rabbits-the rabbits Mallow would have found if you hadn't gone and blundered into him. So you'd better come along and show us how good you are then."

"Very well, sir; I shall be glad to."

There was another silence. This time Bigwig decided to make as if to go. He did so, and immediately a fresh question stopped him short.

"When you were with Hyzenthlay, did she tell you why she was put into the Near Hind Mark?"

"Yes, sir."

"I'm not at all sure the trouble's over there, Thlayli. Keep an eye on it. If she'll talk to you, so much the better. Perhaps those does are settling down and perhaps they aren't. I want to know."

"Very well, sir," said Bigwig.

"That's all," said Woundwort. "You'd better get back to your Mark now."

Bigwig made his way into the field. The silflay was almost over, the sun had set and it was growing dark. Heavy clouds dimmed the afterlight. Kehaar was nowhere to be seen. The sentries came in and the Mark began to go underground. Sitting alone in the grass, he waited until the last rabbit had disappeared. There was still no sign of Kehaar. He hopped slowly to the hole. Entering, he knocked into one of the police escort, who was blocking the mouth to make sure that Blackavar did not try to bolt as he was taken down.

"Get out of my way, you dirty little tale-bearing bloodsucker," said Bigwig. "Now go and report that," he added over his shoulder, as he went down to his burrow.

As the light faded from the thick sky, Hazel slipped once more across the hard, bare earth under the railway arch, came out on the north side and sat up to listen. A few moments later Fiver joined him and they crept a little way into the field, toward Efrafa. The air was close and warm and smelled of rain and ripening barley. There was no sound close by, but behind and below them, from the water meadow on the nearer bank of the Test, came faintly the shrill, incessant fussing of a pair of sandpipers. Kehaar flew down from the top of the embankment.

"You're sure he said tonight?" asked Hazel for the third time.

"Ees bad," said Kehaar. "Maybe dey catch 'im. Ees finish Meester Pigvig. You t'ink?"

Hazel made no reply.

"I can't tell," said Fiver. "Clouds and thunder. That place up the field-it's like the bottom of a river. Anything could be happening in there."

"Bigwig's there. Suppose he's dead? Suppose they're trying to make him tell them-"

"Hazel," said Fiver. "Hazel-rah, you won't help him by staying here in the dark and worrying. Quite likely there's nothing wrong. He's just had to sit tight for some reason. Anyway, he won't come tonight-that's certain now-and our rabbits are in danger here. Kehaar can go up tomorrow at dawn and bring us another message."

"I dare say you're right," said Hazel, "but I hate to go. Just suppose he were to come. Let Silver take them back and I'll stay here."

"You couldn't do any good by yourself, Hazel, even if your leg was all right. You're trying to eat grass that isn't there. Why don't you give it a chance to grow?"

They returned under the arch and as Silver came out of the bushes to meet them, they could hear the other rabbits stirring uneasily among the nettles.

"We'll have to give it up for tonight, Silver," said Hazel. "We must get them back over the river now, before it's completely dark."

"Hazel-rah," said Pipkin, as he slipped by, "it-it is going to be all right, isn't it? Bigwig will come tomorrow, won't he?"

"Of course he will," said Hazel, "and we'll all be here to help him. And I'll tell you something else, Hlao-roo. If he doesn't come tomorrow, I'm going into Efrafa myself."

"I'll come with you, Hazel-rah," said Pipkin.

Bigwig crouched in his burrow, pressed against Hyzenthlay. He was trembling, but not with cold: the stuffy runs of the Mark were dense with thunder; the air felt like a deep drift of leaves. Bigwig was close to utter nervous exhaustion. Since leaving General Woundwort, he had become more and more deeply entangled in all the age-old terrors of the conspirator. How much had Woundwort discovered? Clearly, there was no information that failed to reach him. He knew that Hazel and the rest had come from the north and crossed the iron road. He knew about the fox. He knew that a gull, which should have been far away at this time of year, was hanging round Efrafa and that he, Bigwig, had deliberately been near it. He knew that Bigwig had made a friend of Hyzenthlay. How long could it be before he took the final step of fitting all these things together? Perhaps he had already done so and was merely waiting to arrest them in his own time?

Woundwort had every advantage. He sat secure at the junction of all paths, seeing clearly down each, while he, Bigwig, ludicrous in his efforts to measure up to him as an enemy, clambered clumsily and ignorantly through the undergrowth, betraying himself with every movement. He did not know how to get in touch with Kehaar again. Even if he managed to do so, would Hazel be able to bring the rabbits a second time? Perhaps they had already been spotted by Campion on patrol? To speak to Blackavar would be suspect. To go near Kehaar would be suspect. Through more holes than he could possibly stop, his secret was leaking-pouring-out.

There was worse to come.

"Thlayli," whispered Hyzenthlay, "do you think you and I and Thethuthinnang could get away tonight? If we fought the sentry at the mouth of the run, we might be able to get clear before a patrol could start after us."

"Why?" asked Bigwig. "What makes you ask that?"

"I'm frightened. We told the other does, you see, just before the silflay. They were ready to run when the bird attacked the sentries, and then nothing happened. They all know about the plan-Nelthilta and the rest-and it can't be long before the Council find out. Of course we've told them that their lives depend on keeping quiet and that you're going to try again. Thethuthinnang's watching them now: she says she'll do her best not to sleep. But no secret can be kept in Efrafa. It's even possible that one of the does is a spy, although Frith knows we chose them as carefully as we could. We may all be arrested before tomorrow morning."

Bigwig tried to think clearly. He could certainly succeed in getting out with a couple of resolute, sensible does. But the sentry-unless he could kill him-would raise the alarm at once and he could not be sure of finding the way to the river in the dark. Even if he did, it was possible that the pursuit might follow him over the plank bridge and into the middle of his unprepared, sleeping friends. And at the best he would have come out of Efrafa with no more than a couple of does, because his nerve had failed. Silver and the others would not know what he had had to endure. They would know only that he had run away.

"No, we mustn't give up yet," he said, as gently as he could. "It's the thunder and the waiting that make you feel so much upset. Listen, I promise you that by this time tomorrow you'll be out of Efrafa forever and the others with you. Now go to sleep here for a little while and then go back and help Thethuthinnang. Keep thinking of those high downs and all that I told you. We'll get there-our troubles won't last much longer."

As she fell asleep beside him, Bigwig wondered how on earth he was going to fulfill this promise and whether they would be woken by the Council police. "If we are," he thought, "I'll fight until they tear me to bits. They'll make no Blackavar out of me."

When he woke, he found that he was alone in the burrow. For a moment he wondered whether Hyzenthlay had been arrested. Then he felt sure that the Owslafa could not have removed her while he slept. She must have woken and slipped back to Thethuthinnang without disturbing him.

It was a little before dawn, but the oppression in the air had not lessened. He slipped up the run to the entrance. Moneywort, the sentry on duty, was peering uneasily out of the mouth of the hole, but turned as he approached.

"I wish it would rain, sir," he said. "The thunder's enough to turn the grass sour, but not much hope of it breaking before the evening, I'd say."

"It's bad luck for the Mark's last day on dawn and evening," replied Bigwig. "Go and wake Captain Chervil. I'll take your place here until the Mark come up."

When Moneywort had gone, Bigwig sat in the mouth of the hole and sniffed the heavy air. The sky seemed as close as the tops of the trees, covered with still cloud and flushed on the morning side with a lurid, foxy glow. Not a lark was up, not a thrush singing. The field before him was empty and motionless. The longing to run came over him. In less than no time he could be down to the arch. It was a safe bet that Campion and his patrol would not be out in weather like this. Every living creature up and down the fields and copses must be muted, pressed down as though under a great, soft paw. Nothing would be moving, for the day was unpropitious and instincts were blurred and not to be trusted. It was a time to crouch and be silent. But a fugitive would be safe. Indeed, he could not hope for a better chance.

"O Lord with the starlight ears, send me a sign!" said Bigwig.

He heard movement in the run behind him. It was the Owslafa bringing up the prisoner. In the thundery twilight, Blackavar looked more sick and dejected than ever. His nose was dry and the whites of his eyes showed. Bigwig went out into the field, pulled a mouthful of clover and brought it back.

"Cheer up," he said to Blackavar. "Have some clover."

"That's not allowed, sir," said one of the escort.

"Oh, let him have it, Bartsia," said the other. "There's no one to see. It's hard enough for everyone on a day like this, let alone the prisoner."

Blackavar ate the clover and Bigwig took up his usual place as Chervil arrived to watch the Mark go out.

The rabbits were slow and hesitant and Chervil himself seemed unable to rise to his usual brisk manner. He had little to say as they passed him. He let both Thethuthinnang and Hyzenthlay go by in silence. Nelthilta, however, stopped of her own accord and stared impudently at him.

"Under the weather, Captain?" she said "Brace up, now. You may have a surprise soon, who knows?"

"What do you mean?" answered Chervil sharply.

"Does might grow wings and fly," said Nelthilta, "and before very much longer, too. Secrets go faster than moles underground."

She followed the other does into the field. For a moment Chervil looked as though he were going to call her back.

"I wonder whether you could have a look at my off hind foot?" said Bigwig. "I think I've got a thorn in it."

"Come on, then," said Chervil, "outside. Not that we'll be able to see much better there."

But whether because he was still thinking about what Nelthilta had said, or for some other reason, he did not make a particularly thorough search for the thorn-which was perhaps as well, for there was no thorn there.

"Oh, confound it!" he said, looking up, "there's that dratted white bird again. What's it keep coming here for?" "Why does it worry you?" asked Bigwig. "It's not doing any harm-only looking for snails."

"Anything out of the ordinary is a possible source of danger," replied Chervil, quoting Woundwort. "And you keep away from it today, Thlayli, d'you see? That's an order."

"Oh, very well," said Bigwig. "But surely you know how to get rid of them? I thought all rabbits knew that." "Don't be ridiculous. You're not suggesting attacking a bird that size, with a beak as thick as my front paw?"

"No, no-it's a sort of charm thing that my mother taught me. You know, like 'Ladybird, ladybird, fly away home. That works and so does this-or it always used to with my mother."

"The ladybird thing only works because all ladybirds crawl to the top of the stem and then fly."

"Well, all right," said Bigwig, "have it your own way. But you don't like the bird and I've offered to get rid of it for you. We had a lot of these charms and sayings in my old warren. I only wish we'd had one to get rid of men."

"Well, what is the charm?" said Chervil.

"You say,

"Of course, you have to use hedgerow talk. No use expecting them to understand Lapine. Let's have a go, anyway. If it doesn't work, we're none the worse, and if it does, the Mark will think it was you who drove the bird away. Where's it got to? I can hardly see anything in this light. Oh, there it is, look, behind those thistles. Well, you run like this. Now you have to hop to this side, then to the other side, scratch with your legs-that's right, splendid-cock your ears and then go straight on until-ah! Here we are; now then:

"There you are, you see. It did work. I think there's more than we know to some of these old rhymes and spells. Of course, it might have been just going to fly away anyway. But you must admit it's gone."

"Probably all that prancing about as we came up to it," said Chervil sourly. "We must have looked completely mad. What on earth will the Mark think? Anyway, now we're out here, we may as well go round the sentries."

"I'll stop and feed, if you don't mind," said Bigwig. "I didn't get much last night, you know."

Bigwig's luck was not altogether out. Later that morning, quite unexpectedly, he came upon a chance to talk to Blackavar alone. He had been through the sweltering burrows, finding everywhere quick breathing and feverish pulses; and he was just wondering whether he could not plausibly go and press Chervil to ask the Council's permission for the Mark to spend part of the day in the bushes above ground-for that might very well bring some sort of opportunity with it-when he began to feel the need to pass hraka. No rabbit passes hraka underground: and, like schoolchildren who know that they cannot very well be refused a request to go to the lavatory as long as it is not too soon after the last time, the Efrafan rabbits used to slip into the ditch for a breath of air and a change of scene. Although they were not supposed to be allowed to go more often than was necessary, some of the Owsla were easier than others. As Bigwig approached the hole that led into the ditch, he found two or three young bucks loitering in the run and, as usual, set himself to act his part as convincingly as he could.

"Why are you hanging about here?" he asked.

"The prisoner's escort are up at the hole and they turned us back, sir," answered one. "They're not letting anyone out for the moment."

"Not to pass hraka?" said Bigwig.

"No, sir."

Indignant, Bigwig made his way to the mouth of the hole. Here he found Blackavar's escort talking to the sentry on duty.

"I'm afraid you can't go out for the moment, sir," said Bartsia. "The prisoner's in the ditch, but he won't be long."

"Neither shall I," said Bigwig. "Just get out of the way, will you?" He pushed Bartsia to one side and hopped into the ditch.

The day had become even more lowering and overcast. Blackavar was squatting a little way off, under an overhanging plume of cow parsley. The flies were walking on his shreds of ears, but he seemed not to notice them. Bigwig went along the ditch and squatted beside him.

"Blackavar, listen," he said quickly. "This is the truth, by Frith and the Black Rabbit. I am a secret enemy of Efrafa. No one knows this but you and a few of the Mark does. I'm going to escape with them tonight and I'm going to take you as well. Don't do anything yet. When the time comes I'll be there to tell you. Just brace up and get yourself ready."

Without waiting for an answer, he moved away as though to find a better spot. Even so, he was back at the hole before Blackavar, who evidently meant to stay outside for as long as the escort-clearly in no hurry themselves-would allow.

"Sir," said Bartsia, as Bigwig came in, "that's the third time, sir, that you've disregarded my authority. Council police can't be treated in this way. I'm afraid I shall have to report it, sir."

Bigwig made no reply and returned up the run.

"Wait a bit longer if you can," he said as he passed the bucks. "I don't suppose that poor fellow will get out again today."

He wondered whether to go and look for Hyzenthlay, but decided that it would be prudent to keep away from her. She knew what to do, and the less they were seen together the better. His head ached in the heat and he wanted only to be alone and quiet. He went back to his burrow and slept.

38. The Thunder Breaks

Late in the afternoon it came on dark and very close. It was plain that there would be no true sunset. On the green path by the riverbank, Hazel sat fidgeting as he tried to imagine what might be going on in Efrafa.

"He told you he wanted you to attack the sentries while the rabbits were feeding, didn't he," he said to Kehaar, "and that he'd bring the mothers out in the confusion?"

"Ya, say dis, but not 'appen. Den 'e say go away, come again tonight."

"So that's still what he means to do. The question is, when will they be feeding? It's getting dark already. Silver, what do you think?"

"If I know them, they won't alter anything they usually do," said Silver. "But if you're worried in case we're not there in time, why not go now?"

"Because they're always patrolling. The longer we wait up there, the greater the risk. If a patrol finds us before Bigwig comes, it won't be just a matter of getting ourselves away. They'll realize we're there for some purpose and give the alarm, and that'll be the end of any chance he's got."

"Listen, Hazel-rah," said Blackberry. "We ought to reach the iron road at the same time as Bigwig and not a moment before. Why don't you take them all over the river now and wait in the undergrowth, near the boat? Once Kehaar's attacked the sentries, he can fly back and tell us."

"Yes, that's it," answered Hazel. "But once he's told us, we must get up there in no time at all. Bigwig's going to need us as well as Kehaar."

"Well, you won't be able to dash up to the arch," said Fiver, "with your leg. The best thing you can do is to get on the boat and have the rope gnawed half through by the time we come back. Silver can look after the fighting, if there's going to be any."

Hazel hesitated. "But some of us are probably going to get hurt. I can't stay behind."

"Fiver's right," said Blackberry. "You will have to wait on the boat, Hazel. We can't risk your being left to be picked up by the Efrafans. Besides, it's very important that the rope should be half gnawed-that's a job for someone sensible. It mustn't break too soon or we're all finished."

It took them some time to persuade Hazel. When at last he agreed, he was still reluctant.

"If Bigwig doesn't come tonight," he said, "I shall go and find him, wherever he is. Frith knows what may have happened already."

As they set off up the left bank, the wind began to blow in fitful, warm gusts, with a multifoliate rustling through the sedges. They had just reached the plank bridge when there came a rumble of thunder. In the intense, strange light, the plants and leaves seemed magnified and the fields beyond the river very near. There was an oppressive stillness.

"You know, Hazel-rah," said Bluebell, "this really is the funniest evening I've ever gone looking for a doe."

"It's going to get a lot funnier soon," said Silver. "There'll be lightning and pouring rain. For goodness' sake, all of you, don't panic, or we'll never see our warren again. I think this is going to be a rough business," he added quietly to Hazel. "I don't like it much."

Bigwig woke to hear his name repeated urgently.

"Thlayli! Thlayli! Wake up! Thlayli!"

It was Hyzenthlay.

"What is it?" he said. "What's the matter?"

"Nelthilta's been arrested."

Bigwig leaped to his feet.

"How long ago? How did it happen?"

"Just now. Moneywort came down to our burrow and told her to come up to Captain Chervil at once. I followed them up the run. When she got to Chervil's burrow, there were two Council police waiting just outside and one of them said to Chervil, 'Well, as quick as you can, and don't be long. And then they took her straight out. They must have gone to the Council. Oh, Thlayli, what shall we do? She'll tell them everything-"

"Listen to me," said Bigwig. "There's not a moment to lose. Go and get Thethuthinnang and the others and bring them up to this burrow. I shan't be here, but you must wait quietly until I come back. It won't be long. Quick now! Everything depends on it."

Hyzenthlay had hardly disappeared down the run when Bigwig heard another rabbit approaching from the opposite direction.

"Who's there?" he said, turning swiftly.

"Chervil," answered the other. "I'm glad you're awake. Listen, Thlayli, there's going to be a whole lot of trouble.

Nelthilta's been arrested by the Council. I was sure she would be, after my report to Vervain this morning. Whatever it was she was talking about, they'll get it out of her. I dare say the General will be here himself as soon as he knows what's what. Now look here, I've got to go over to the Council burrow at once. You and Avens are to stay here and get the sentries on duty immediately. There'll be no silflay and no one is to go outside for any reason whatever. All the holes are to be double-guarded. Now, you understand these orders, don't you?"

"Have you told Avens?"

"I haven't time to go looking for Avens; he's not in his burrow. Go and alert the sentries yourself. Send someone to find Avens and someone else to tell Bartsia that Blackavar won't be wanted this evening. Then sit on those holes-and the hraka holes, too-with every sentry you've got. For all I know, there may be some plot to make a break-out. We arrested Nelthilta as quietly as we could, but the Mark are bound to realize what's happened. If necessary you're to get rough, do you see? Now I'm off."

"Right," said Bigwig. "I'll get busy at once."

He followed Chervil to the top of the run. The sentry at the hole was Marjoram. As he stood clear to let Chervil pass, Bigwig came up behind him and looked out into the overcast.

"Did Chervil tell you?" he said. "Silflay's early tonight, on account of the weather. The orders are that we're to get on with it at once."

He waited for Marjoram's reply. If Chervil had already told him that no one was to go out, it would be necessary to fight him. But after a moment Marjoram said, "Have you heard any thunder yet?"

"Get on with it at once, I said," answered Bigwig. "Go down and get Blackavar and the escort up, and be quick, too. We'll need to get the Mark out immediately if they're to feed before the storm breaks."

Marjoram went and Bigwig hurried back to his own burrow. Hyzenthlay had lost no time. Three or four does were crammed into the burrow itself and nearby, in a side run, Thethuthinnang was crouching with several more. All were silent and frightened and one or two were close to the stupefaction of terror.

"This is no time to go tharn," said Bigwig. "Your lives depend on doing as I say. Listen, now. Blackavar and the police guards will be up directly. Marjoram will probably come up behind them and you must find some excuse to keep him talking. Soon after, you'll hear fighting, because I'm going to attack the police guards. When you hear that, come up as fast as you can and follow me out into the field. Don't stop for anything."

As he finished speaking, he heard the unmistakable sound of Blackavar and the guards approaching. Blackavar's weary, dragging gait was like that of no other rabbit. Without waiting for the does to reply, Bigwig returned to the mouth of the run. The three rabbits came up in single file, Bartsia leading.

"I'm afraid I've brought you up here for nothing," said Bigwig. "I've just been told that silflay's canceled for this evening. Have a look outside and you'll see why."

As Bartsia went to look out of the hole, Bigwig slipped quickly between him and Blackavar.

"Well, it looks very stormy, certainly," said Bartsia, "but I shouldn't have thought-"

"Now, Blackavar!" cried Bigwig, and leaped on Bartsia from behind.

Bartsia fell forward out of the hole with Bigwig on top of him. He was not a member of the Owslafa for nothing and was reckoned a good fighter. As they rolled over on the ground, he turned his head and sank his teeth in Bigwig's shoulder. He had been trained to get a grip at once and to hold it at all costs. More than once in the past this had served him well. But in fighting a rabbit of Bigwig's strength and courage it proved a mistake. His best chance would have been to keep clear and use his claws. He retained his hold like a dog, and Bigwig, snarling, brought both his own back legs forward, sank his feet in Bartsia's side and then, ignoring the pain in his shoulder, forced himself upward. He felt Bartsia's closed teeth come tearing out through his flesh and then he was standing above him as he fell back on the ground, kicking helplessly. Bigwig leaped clear. It was plain that Bartsia's haunch was injured. He struggled, but could not get up.

"Think yourself lucky," said Bigwig, bleeding and cursing, "that I don't kill you."

Without waiting to see what Bartsia would do, he jumped back into the hole. He found Blackavar grappling with the other guard. Just beyond them, Hyzenthlay was coming up the run with Thethuthinnang behind her. Bigwig gave the guard a tremendous cuff on the side of the head, which knocked him clear across the run and into the prisoner's alcove. He picked himself up, panting, and stared at Bigwig without a word.

"Don't move," said Bigwig. "There'll be worse to come if you do. Blackavar, are you all right?"

"Yes, sir," said Blackavar, "but what do we do now?"

"Follow me," said Bigwig, "all of you. Come on!"

He led the way out again. There was no sign of Bartsia, but as he looked back to make sure that the others were following, he caught a glimpse of the astonished face of Avens peering out of the other hole.

"Captain Chervil wants you!" he called, and dashed away into the field.

As he reached the clump of thistles where he had spoken to Kehaar that morning, a long roll of thunder sounded from across the valley beyond. A few great, warm drops of rain were falling. Along the western horizon the lower clouds formed a single purple mass, against which distant trees stood out minute and sharp. The upper edges rose into the light, a far land of wild mountains. Copper-colored, weightless and motionless, they suggested a glassy fragility like that of frost. Surely, when the thunder struck them again they would vibrate, tremble and shatter, till warm shards, sharp as icicles, fell flashing down from the ruins. Racing through the ocher light, Bigwig was impelled by a frenzy of tension and energy. He did not feel the wound in his shoulder. The storm was his own. The storm would defeat Efrafa.

He was well out into the great field and looking for a sight of the distant arch when he felt along the ground the first stamping thuds of the alarm. He pulled up and looked about him. There did not seem to be any stragglers. The does-however many there were-were well up with him, but scattered to either side. Rabbits in flight tend to keep away from each other, and the does had opened out as they left the hole. If there was a patrol between him and the iron road they would not get past it without loss unless they came closer together. He would have to collect them, despite the delay. Then another thought came to him. If they could get out of sight, their pursuers might be puzzled, for the rain and the failing light would make tracking difficult.

The rain was falling faster now and the wind was rising. Over on the evening side, a hedge ran down the length of the field toward the iron road. He saw Blackavar nearby and ran across to him.

"I want everyone the other side of that hedge," he said. "Can you get hold of some of them and bring them that way?"

Bigwig remembered that Blackavar knew nothing except that they were on the run. There was no time to explain about Hazel and the river.

"Go straight to that ash tree in the hedge," he said, "and take all the does you can pick up on the way. Get through to the other side and I'll be there as soon as you are."

At this moment Hyzenthlay and Thethuthinnang came running toward them, followed by two or three other does. They were plainly confused and uncertain.

"The stamping, Thlayli!" panted Thethuthinnang. "They're coming!"

"Well, run, then," said Bigwig. "Keep near me, all of you."

They were better runners than he had dared to hope. As they made for the ash tree, more does fell in with them and it seemed to him that they ought now to be a match for a patrol, unless it were a very strong one. Once through the hedge he turned south and, keeping close beside it, led them down the slope. There, ahead of him, was the arch in the overgrown embankment. But would Hazel be there? And where was Kehaar?

"Well, and what was to happen after that, Nelthilta?" asked General Woundwort. "Make sure you tell us everything, because we know a good deal already. Let her alone, Vervain," he added. "She can't talk if you keep cuffing her, you fool."

"Hyzenthlay said-oh! oh! — she said a big bird would attack the Owsla sentries," gasped Nelthilta, "and we would run away in the confusion. And then-"

"She said a bird would attack the sentries?" interrupted Woundwort, puzzled. "Are you telling the truth? What sort of a bird?"

"I don't-I don't know," panted Nelthilta. "The new officer-she said he had told the bird-"

"What do you know about a bird?" said Woundwort, turning to Chervil.

"I reported it, sir," replied Chervil. "You'll not forget, sir, that I reported the bird-"

There was a scuffling outside the crowded Council burrow and Avens came pushing his way in.

"The new officer, sir!" he cried. "He's gone! Taken a crowd of the Mark does with him. Jumped on Bartsia and broke his leg, sir! Blackavar's cut and run, too. We never had a chance to stop them. Goodness knows how many have joined him. Thlayli-it's Thlayli's doing!"

"Thlayli?" cried Woundwort. "Embleer Frith, I'll blind him when I catch him! Chervil, Vervain, Avens-yes and you two as well-come with me. Which way has he gone?"

"He was going downhill, sir," answered Avens.

"Lead the way you saw him take," said Woundwort.

As they came out from the Crixa, two or three of the Efrafan officers checked at the sight of the murky light and increasing rain. But the sight of the General was more alarming still. Pausing only to stamp the escape alarm, they set out behind him toward the iron road.

Very soon they came upon traces of blood which the rain had not yet washed away, and these they followed toward the ash tree in the hedge to the west of the warren.

Bigwig came out from the further side of the railway arch, sat up and looked round him. There was no sign either of Hazel or of Kehaar. For the first time since he had attacked Bartsia he began to feel uncertain and troubled. Perhaps, after all, Kehaar had not understood his cryptic message that morning? Or had some disaster overtaken Hazel and the rest? If they were dead-scattered-if there was no one left alive to meet him? He and his does would wander about the fields until the patrols hunted them down.

"No, it shan't come to that," said Bigwig to himself. "At the worst we can cross the river and try to hide in the woodland. Confound this shoulder! It's going to be more nuisance than I thought. Well, I'll try to get them down to the plank bridge at least. If we're not overtaken soon, perhaps the rain will discourage whoever's after us; but I doubt it."

He turned back to the does waiting under the arch. Most of them looked bewildered. Hyzenthlay had promised that they were to be protected by a great bird and that the new officer was going to work a secret trick to evade the pursuit-a trick which would defeat even the General. These things had not happened. They were wet through. Runnels of water were trickling through the arch from the uphill side, and the bare earth was beginning to turn into mud. Ahead of them there was nothing to be seen but a track leading through the nettles into another wide and empty field.

"Come on," said Bigwig. "It's not far now and then we'll all be safe. This way."

All the rabbits obeyed him at once. There was something to be said for Efrafan discipline, thought Bigwig grimly, as they left the arch and met the force of the rain.

Along one side of the field, beside the elms, farm tractors had pounded a broad, flat path downhill toward the water meadow below-that same path up which he had run three nights before, after he had left Hazel by the boat. It was turning muddy now-unpleasant going for rabbits-but at least it led straight to the river and was open enough for Kehaar to spot them if he should turn up.

He had just begun to run once more when a rabbit overtook him.

''Stop, Thlayli! What are you doing here? Where are you going?"

Bigwig had been half expecting Campion to appear and had made up his mind to kill him if necessary. But now that he actually saw him at his side, disregarding the storm and the mud, self-possessed as he led his patrol, no more than four strong, into the thick of a pack of desperate runaways, he could feel only what a pity it was that the two of them should be enemies and how much he would have liked to have taken Campion with him out of Efrafa.

"Go away," he said. "Don't try to stop us, Campion. I don't want to hurt you."

He glanced to his other side. "Blackavar, get the does to close up. If there are any stragglers the patrol will jump on them."

"You'd do better to give in now," said Campion, still running beside him. "I shan't let you out of my sight, wherever you go. There's an escape patrol on the way-I heard the signal. When they get here you won't stand a chance. You're bleeding badly now."

"Curse you!" cried Bigwig, striking at him. "You'll bleed too, before I've done."

"Can I fight him, sir?" said Blackavar. "He won't beat me a second time."

"No," answered Bigwig, "he's only trying to delay us. Keep running."

"Thlayli!" cried Thethuthinnang suddenly, from behind him. "The General! The General! Oh, what shall we do?"

Bigwig looked back. It was indeed a sight to strike terror into the bravest heart. Woundwort had come through the arch ahead of his followers and was running toward them by himself, snarling with fury. Behind him came the patrol. In one quick glance Bigwig recognized Chervil, Avens and Groundsel. With them were several more, including a heavy, savage-looking rabbit whom he guessed to be Vervain, the head of the Council police. It crossed his mind that if he were to run, immediately and alone, they would probably let him go as he had come, and feel glad to be so easily rid of him. Certainly the alternative was to be killed. At this moment Blackavar spoke.

"Never mind, sir," he said. "You did your very best and it nearly came off. We may even be able to kill one or two of them before it's finished. Some of these does can fight well when they're put to it."

Bigwig rubbed his nose quickly against Blackavar's mutilated ear and sat back on his haunches as Woundwort came up to them.

"You dirty little beast," said Woundwort. "I hear you've attacked one of the Council police and broken his leg. We'll settle with you here. There's no need to take you back to Efrafa."

"You crack-brained slave-driver," answered Bigwig. "I'd like to see you try."

"All right," said Woundwort, "that's enough. Who have we got? Vervain, Campion, put him down. The rest of you, start getting these does back to the warren. The prisoner you can leave to me."

"Frith sees you!" cried Bigwig. "You're not fit to be called a rabbit! May Frith blast you and your foul Owsla full of bullies!"

At that instant a dazzling claw of lightning streaked down the length of the sky. The hedge and the distant trees seemed to leap forward in the brilliance of the flash. Immediately upon it came the thunder: a high, tearing noise, as though some huge thing were being ripped to pieces close above, which deepened and turned to enormous blows of dissolution. Then the rain fell like a waterfall. In a few seconds the ground was covered with water and over it, to a height of inches, rose a haze formed of a myriad minute splashes. Stupefied with the shock, unable even to move, the sodden rabbits crouched inert, almost pinned to the earth by the rain.

A small voice spoke in Bigwig's mind.

"Your storm, Thlayli-rah. Use it."

Gasping, he struggled up and pushed Blackavar with his foot.

"Come on," he said, "get hold of Hyzenthlay. We're going."

He shook his head, trying to blink the rain out of his eyes. Then it was no longer Blackavar who was crouching in front of him but Woundwort, drenched in mud and rain, glaring and scrabbling in the silt with his great claws.

"I'll kill you myself," said Woundwort.

His long front teeth were bared like the fangs of a rat. Afraid, Bigwig watched him closely. He knew that Woundwort, with all the advantage of weight, would jump and try to close with him. He must try to avoid him and rely on his claws. He shifted his ground uneasily and felt himself slipping in the mud. Why did Woundwort not jump? Then he realized that Woundwort was no longer looking at him, but staring over his head at something beyond, something that he himself could not see. Suddenly, Woundwort leaped backward and in the same moment, through the all-enveloping sound of the rain, there sounded a raucous clamor.

"Yark! Yark! Yark!"

Some big white thing was striking at Woundwort, who was cowering and guarding his head as best he could. Then it was gone, sailing upward and turning in the rain.

"Meester Pigvig, ees rabbits come!"

Sights and feelings swirled through Bigwig as though in a dream. The things that were happening no longer seemed connected by anything except his own dazed senses. He heard Kehaar screaming as he dived again to attack Vervain. He felt the rain pouring cold into the open gash in his shoulder. Through the curtain of rain he glimpsed Woundwort dodging among his officers and urging them back into the ditch on the edge of the field. He saw Blackavar striking at Campion and Campion turning to run. Then someone beside him was saying, "Hullo, Bigwig. Bigwig! Bigwig! What do you want us to do?" It was Silver.

"Where's Hazel?" he said.

"Waiting at the boat. I say, you're wounded! What-"

"Then get these does down there," said Bigwig.

All was confusion. In ones and twos the does, utterly bemused and scarcely able to move or to understand what was said to them, were urged into getting up and stumbling their way down the field. Other rabbits began to appear through the rain: Acorn, clearly frightened, but determined not to run; Dandelion encouraging Pipkin; Speedwell and Hawkbit making toward Kehaar-the only creature visible above the ground haze. Bigwig and Silver brought them together as best they could and made them understand that they were to help to get the does away.

"Go back to Blackberry, go back to Blackberry," Silver kept repeating. "I left three of our rabbits in different places to mark the way back," he explained to Bigwig. "Blackberry's first, then Bluebell, then Fiver-he's quite near the river."

"And there is Blackberry," said Bigwig.

"You did it, then, Bigwig," said Blackberry, shivering. "Was it very bad? Good heavens, your shoulder-"

"It's not finished yet," said Bigwig. "Has everyone passed you?"

"You're the last," said Blackberry. "Can we go? This storm's terrifying me!"

Kehaar alighted beside them.

"Meester Pigvig," he said, "I fly on does damn rabbits, but dey no run, dey get in ditch. I no catch 'em in dere. Dey coming all along beside you."

"They'll never give up," said Bigwig. "I warn you, Silver, they'll be at us before it's done. There's thick cover in the water meadow-they'll use that. Acorn, come back, keep away from that ditch!"

"Go back to Bluebell! Go back to Bluebell!" repeated Silver, running from side to side.

They found Bluebell by the hedge at the bottom of the field. He was white-eyed and ready to bolt.

"Silver," he said, "I saw a bunch of rabbits-strangers, Efrafans, I suppose-come out of the ditch over there and slip across into the water meadow. They're behind us now. One of them was the biggest rabbit I've ever seen."

"Then don't stay here," said Silver. "There goes Speedwell. And who's that? Acorn and two does with him. That's everyone. Come on, quick as you can."

It was only a short distance now to the river, but among the sodden patches of rushes, the bushes and sedge and deep puddles, they found it next to impossible to tell their direction. Expecting to be attacked at any moment, they scuttered and floundered through the undergrowth, finding here a doe and there one of their own rabbits and forcing them on. Without Kehaar they would certainly have lost all touch with each other and perhaps never reached the river. The gull kept flying backward and forward along the direct line to the bank, only alighting now and then to guide Bigwig toward some straggling doe whom he had spotted going the wrong way.

"Kehaar," said Bigwig, as they waited for Thethuthinnang to struggle up to them through a half-flattened clump of nettles, "will you go and see whether you can spot the Efrafans? They can't be far away. But why haven't they attacked us? We're all so scattered that they could easily do us a lot of harm. I wonder what they're up to?"

Kehaar was back in a very short time.

"Dey hiding at pridge," he said, "all under pushes. I come down, dat peeg fella 'e make for fight me."

"Did he?" said Bigwig. "The brute's got courage, I'll give him that."

"Dey t'ink you got to cross river dere or else go all along pank. Dey not know heem poat. You near poat now."

Fiver came running through the undergrowth.

"We've been able to get some of them on the boat, Bigwig," he said, "but most of them won't trust me. They just keep asking where you are."

Bigwig ran behind him and came out on the green path by the bank. All the surface of the river was winking and plopping in the rain. The level did not appear to have risen much as yet. The boat was just as he remembered it-one end against the bank, the other a little way out in the stream. On the raised part at the near end Hazel was crouching, his ears drooping on either side of his head and his flattened fur completely black with rain. He was holding the taut rope in his teeth. Acorn, Hyzenthlay and two more were crouching near him on the wood, but the rest were huddled here and there along the bank. Blackberry was trying unsuccessfully to persuade them to get out on the boat.

"Hazel's afraid to leave the rope," he said to Bigwig. "Apparently he's bitten it very thin already. All these does will say is that you're their officer."

Bigwig turned to Thethuthinnang.

"This is the magic trick now," he said. "Get them over there, where Hyzenthlay's sitting, do you see? All of them — quickly."

Before she could reply, another doe gave a squeal of fear. A little way downstream, Campion and his patrol had emerged from the bushes and were coming up the path. From the opposite direction Vervain, Chervil and Groundsel were approaching. The doe turned and darted for the undergrowth immediately behind her. Just as she reached it, Woundwort himself appeared in her way, reared up and dealt her a great, raking blow across the face. The doe turned once more and ran blindly across the path and onto the boat.

Bigwig realized that since the moment when Kehaar had attacked him in the field, Woundwort had not only retained control over his officers but had actually made a plan and put it into effect. The storm and the difficult going had upset the fugitives and disorganized them. Woundwort, on the other hand, had taken his rabbits into the ditch and then made use of it to get them down to the water meadow, unexposed to further attack from Kehaar. Once there, he must have gone straight for the plank bridge-which he evidently knew about-and set an ambush under cover. But as soon as he had grasped that for some reason the runaways were not making for the bridge after all, he had instantly sent Campion to make his way round through the undergrowth, regain the bank downstream and cut them off; and Campion had done this without error or delay. Now Woundwort meant to fight them, here on the bank. He knew that Kehaar could not be everywhere and that the bushes and undergrowth provided enough cover, at a pinch, to dodge him. It was true that the other side had twice his numbers, but most of them were afraid of him and none was a trained Efrafan officer. Now that he had them pinned against the river, he would split them up and kill as many as possible. The rest could run away and come to grief as they might.

Bigwig began to understand why Woundwort's officers followed him and fought for him as they did.

"He's not like a rabbit at all," he thought. "Flight's the last thing he ever thinks of. If I'd known three nights ago what I know now, I don't believe I'd ever have gone into Efrafa. I suppose he hasn't realized about the boat, too? It wouldn't surprise me." He dashed across the grass and jumped on the planking beside Hazel.

The appearance of Woundwort had achieved what Blackberry and Fiver could not. Every one of the does ran from the bank to the boat. Blackberry and Fiver ran with them. Woundwort, following them close, reached the edge of the bank and came face to face with Bigwig. As he stood his ground, Bigwig could hear Blackberry just behind him, speaking urgently to Hazel.

"Dandelion's not here," said Blackberry. "He's the only one."

Hazel spoke for the first time. "We shall have to leave him," he answered. "It's a shame, but these fellows will be at us in a moment and we can't stop them."

Bigwig spoke without taking his eyes from Woundwort. "Just a few more moments, Hazel," he said. "I'll keep them off. We can't leave Dandelion."

Woundwort sneered up at him. "I trusted you, Thlayli," he said. "You can trust me now. You'll either go into the river or be torn to pieces here-the whole lot of you. There's nowhere left to run."

Bigwig had caught sight of Dandelion looking out of the undergrowth opposite. He was plainly at a loss.

"Groundsel! Vervain!" said Woundwort. "Come over here beside me. When I give the word, we'll go straight into them. As for that bird, it's not dangerous-"

"There it is!" cried Bigwig. Woundwort looked up quickly and leaped back. Dandelion shot out of the bushes, crossed the path in a flash and was on the boat beside Hazel. In the same moment the rope parted and immediately the little punt began to move along the bank in the steady current. When it had gone a few yards, the stern swung slowly outward until it was broadside on to the stream. In this position it drifted to the middle of the river and into the southward bend.

Looking back, the last thing Bigwig saw was the face of General Woundwort staring out of the gap in the willow herb where the boat had lain. It reminded him of the kestrel on Watership Down which had pounced into the mouth of the hole and missed the mouse.