Woundwort clambered out into the Honeycomb, now dimly lit down the shaft by the daylight outside. He had never felt so tired. He saw Vervain and Thunder looking at him uncertainly. He sat on his haunches and tried to clean his face with his front paws.
'Thlayli won't give any more trouble,' he said. 'You'd better just go in and finish him off, Vervain, since he won't come out.'
'You're asking
'Well, just take him on for a few moments,' answered Woundwort. 'I want to start them getting this wall down in one or two other places. Then I'll come back.'
Vervain knew that the impossible had happened. The General had come off worst. What he was saying was, 'Cover up for me. Don't let the others know.'
'What in Frith's name happens now?' thought Vervain. 'The plain truth is that Thlayli's had the best of it all along, ever since he first met him in Efrafa. And the sooner we're back there the better.'
He met Woundwort's pale stare, hesitated a moment and then climbed on the earth pile. Woundwort limped across to the two runs, halfway down the eastern wall, which Groundsel had been told to get open. Both were now clear at the entrances and the diggers were out of sight in the tunnels. As he approached, Groundsel backed down the further tunnel and began cleaning his claws on a projecting root.
'How are you getting on?' asked Woundwort.
'This run's open, sir,' said Groundsel, 'but the other will take a bit longer, I'm afraid. It's heavily blocked.'
'One's enough,' said Woundwort, 'as long as they can come down it. We can bring them in and start getting that end wall down.'
He was about to go up the run himself when he found Vervain beside him. For a moment he thought that he was going to say that he had killed Thlayli. A second glance showed him otherwise.
'I've-er-got some grit in my eye, sir,' said Vervain. 'I'll just get it out and then I'll have another go at him.'
Without a word Woundwort went back to the far end of the Honeycomb. Vervain followed.
'You coward,' said Woundwort in his ear. 'If my authority goes, where will yours be in half a day? Aren't you the most hated officer in Efrafa? That rabbit's
Once more he climbed on the earth pile. Then he stopped. Vervain and Thistle, raising their heads to peer past him from behind, saw why. Thlayli had made his way up the run and was crouching immediately below. Blood had matted the great thatch of fur on his head, and one ear, half severed, hung down beside his face. His breathing was slow and heavy.
'You'll find it much harder to push me back from here, General,' he said.
With a sort of weary, dull surprise, Woundwort realized that he was afraid. He did not want to attack Thlayli again. He knew, with flinching certainty, that he was not up to it. And who was? he thought. Who could do it? No, they would have to get in by some other way and everyone would know why.
'Thlayli,' he said, 'we've unblocked a run out here. I can bring in enough rabbits to pull down this wall in four places. Why don't you come out?'
Thlayli's reply, when it came, was low and gasping, but perfectly clear.
'My Chief Rabbit has told me to defend this run and until he says otherwise I shall stay here.'
'His Chief Rabbit?' said Vervain, staring.
It had never occurred to Woundwort or any of his officers that Thlayli was not the Chief Rabbit of his warren. Yet what he said carried immediate conviction. He was speaking the truth. And if he was not the Chief Rabbit, then somewhere close by there must be another, stronger rabbit who was. A stronger rabbit than Thlayli. Where was he? What was he doing at this moment?
Woundwort became aware that Thistle was no longer behind him.
'Where's that young fellow gone?' he said to Vervain.
'He seems to have slipped away, sir,' answered Vervain.
'You should have stopped him,' said Woundwort. 'Fetch him back.'
But it was Groundsel who returned to him a few moments later.
'I'm sorry, sir,' he said, 'Thistle's gone up the opened run. I thought you'd sent him or I'd have asked him what he was up to. One or two of my rabbits seem to have gone with him-I don't know what for, I'm sure.'
'I'll give them what for,' said Woundwort. 'Come with me.'
He knew now what they would have to do. Every rabbit he had brought must be sent underground to dig and every blocked gap in the wall must be opened. As for Thlayli, he could simply be left where he was and the less said about him the better. There must be no more fighting in narrow runs, and when the terrible Chief Rabbit finally appeared he would be pulled down in the open, from all sides.
He turned to re-cross the burrow, but remained where he was, staring. In the faint patch of light below the ragged hole in the roof, a rabbit was standing-no Efrafan, a rabbit unknown to the General. He was very small and was looking tensely about him-wide-eyed as a kitten above ground for the first time-as though by no means sure where he might be. As Woundwort watched, he raised a trembling forepaw and passed it gropingly across his face. For a moment some old, flickering, here-and-gone feeling stirred in the General's memory-the smell of wet cabbage leaves in a cottage garden, the sense of some easy-going, kindly place, long forgotten and lost.
'Who the devil's that?' asked General Woundwort.
'It-it must be the rabbit that's been lying there, sir,' answered Groundsel. 'The rabbit we thought was dead.'
'Oh, is that it?' said Woundwort. 'Well, he's just about your mark, isn't he, Vervain? That's one of them you might be able to tackle, at all events. Hurry up,' he sneered, as Vervain hesitated, uncertain whether the General were serious, 'and come on out as soon as you've finished.'
Vervain advanced slowly across the floor. Even he could derive little satisfaction from the prospect of killing a tharn rabbit half his own size, in obedience to a contemptuous taunt. The small rabbit made no move whatever, either to retreat or to defend himself, but only stared at him from great eyes which, though troubled, were certainly not those of a beaten enemy or a victim. Before his gaze, Vervain stopped in uncertainty and for long moments the two faced each other in the dim light. Then, very quietly and with no trace of fear, the strange rabbit said,
'I am sorry for you with all my heart. But you cannot blame us, for you came to kill us if you could.'
'Blame you?' answered Vervain. 'Blame you for what?'
'For your death. Believe me, I am sorry for your death.'
Vervain in his time had encountered any number of prisoners who, before they died, had cursed or threatened him, not uncommonly with supernatural vengeance, much as Bigwig had cursed Woundwort in the storm. If such things had been liable to have any effect on him, he would not have been head of the Owslafa. Indeed, for almost any utterance that a rabbit in this dreadful situation could find to make, Vervain was unthinkingly ready with one or other of a stock of jeering rejoinders. Now, as he continued to meet the eyes of this unaccountable enemy-the only one he had faced in all the long night's search for bloodshed-horror came upon him and he was filled with a sudden fear of his words, gentle and inexorable as the falling of bitter snow in a land without refuge. The shadowy recesses of the strange burrow seemed full of whispering, malignant ghosts and he recognized the forgotten voices of rabbits done to death months since in the ditches of Efrafa.
'Let me alone!' cried Vervain. 'Let me go! Let me go!'
Stumbling and blundering, he found his way to the opened run and dragged himself up it. At the top he came upon Woundwort, listening to one of Groundsel's diggers, who was trembling and white-eyed.
'Oh, sir,' said the youngster, 'they say there's a great Chief Rabbit bigger than a hare; and a strange animal they heard-'
'Shut up!' said Woundwort. 'Follow me, come on.'
He came out on the bank, blinking in the sunlight. The rabbits scattered about the grass stared at him in horror, several wondering whether this could really be the General. His nose and one eyelid were gashed and his whole face was masked with blood. As he limped down from the bank his near foreleg trailed and he staggered sideways. He scrambled into the open grass and looked about him.
'Now,' said Woundwort, 'this is the last thing we have to do, and it won't take long. Down below, there's a kind of wall.' He stopped, sensing all around him reluctance and fear. He looked at Ragwort, who looked away.
