they ask to see his mark. Frith knows what happens if he can't explain himself-but I can guess pretty well. Rabbits in Efrafa quite often go days at a time without the sight of Frith. If their Mark's on night silflay, then they feed by night, wet or fine, warm or cold. They're all used to talking, playing and mating in the burrows underground. If a Mark can't silflay at their appointed time for some reason or other-say there was a man working somewhere near-that's just too bad. They miss their turn till next day.'
'But surely it alters them very much, living like that?' asked Dandelion.
'Very much indeed,' replied Holly. 'Most of them can't do anything but what they're told. They've never been out of Efrafa and never smelled an enemy. The one aim of every rabbit in Efrafa is to get into the Owsla, because of the privileges: and the one aim of everyone in the Owsla is to get into the Council. The Council have the best of everything. But the Owsla have to keep very strong and tough. They take it in turn to do what they call Wide Patrol. They go out over the country-all round the place-living in the open for days at a time. It's partly to find out anything they can, and partly to train them and make them tough and cunning. Any hlessil they find they pick up and bring back to Efrafa. If they won't come, they kill them. They reckon hlessil a danger, because they may attract the attention of men. The Wide Patrols report back to General Woundwort, and the Council decide what to do about anything new that they think may be dangerous.'
'They missed you on the way in, then?' said Bluebell.
'Oh, no, they didn't! We learned later that some time after we'd been brought in by this rabbit-Captain Campion-a runner arrived from a Wide Patrol to say that they'd picked up the track of three or four rabbits coming toward Efrafa from the north, and were there any orders? He was sent back to say that we were safely under control.
'Anyway, this Captain Campion took us down to a hole in the ditch. The mouth of the hole was a bit of old earthenware pipe and if a man had pulled it out, the opening would have fallen in and showed no trace of the run inside. And there he handed us over to another captain-because he had to go back above ground for the rest of his spell of duty, you see. We were taken to a big burrow and told to make ourselves at home.
'There were other rabbits in the burrow and it was by listening to them and asking questions that I learned most of what I've been telling you. We got talking to some of the does and I made friends with one called Hyzenthlay.[12] I told her about our problem here and why we'd come, and then she told us about Efrafa. When she'd finished I said, 'It sounds terrible. Has it always been like this? She said no, her mother had told her that in years gone by the warren had been elsewhere and much smaller, but when General Woundwort came, he had made them move to Efrafa and then he'd worked out this whole system of concealment and perfected it until rabbits in Efrafa were as safe as stars in the sky. 'Most rabbits here die of old age, unless the Owsla kill them off, she said. 'But the trouble is, there are more rabbits now than the warren can hold. Any fresh digging that's allowed has to be done under Owsla supervision and they do it terribly slowly and carefully. It all has to be hidden, you see. We're overcrowded and a lot of rabbits don't get above ground as much as they need to. And for some reason there are not enough bucks and too many does. A lot of us have found we can't produce litters, because of the overcrowding, but no one is ever allowed to leave. Only a few days ago, several of us does went to the Council and asked whether we could form an expedition to start a new warren somewhere else. We said we'd go far, far away-as far away as they liked. But they wouldn't hear of it-not on any account. Things can't go on like this-the system's breaking down. But it doesn't do to be heard talking about it.
'Well, I thought, this sounds hopeful. Surely they won't object to our proposals? We only want to take a few does and no bucks. They've got more does than there's room for and we want to take them further away than anyone here can ever have been.
'A little later another captain came and said we were to come with him to the Council meeting.
'The Council meet in a kind of big burrow. It's long and rather narrow-not as good as this Honeycomb of ours, because they've got no tree roots to make a wide roof. We had to wait outside while they were talking about all sorts of other things. We were just one piece of daily Council business: 'Strangers apprehended. There was another rabbit waiting and he was under special guard-Owslafa, they call them: the Council police. I've never been near anyone so frightened in my life-I thought he'd go mad with fear. I asked one of these Owslafa what was the matter and he said that this rabbit, Blackavar, had been caught trying to run away from the warren. Well, they took him inside and first of all we heard the poor fellow trying to explain himself, and then he was crying and begging for mercy: and when he came out they'd ripped both his ears to shreds, worse than this one of mine. We were all sniffing at him, absolutely horror-stricken; but one of the Owslafa said, 'You needn't make such a fuss. He's lucky to be alive. So while we were chewing on that, someone came out and said the Council were ready for us.
'As soon as we got in, we were put up in front of this General Woundwort, and he really is a grim customer. I don't think even you'd match up to him, Bigwig. He's almost as big as a hare and there's something about his mere presence that frightens you, as if blood and fighting and killing were all just part of the day's work to him. I thought he'd begin by asking us some questions about who we were and what we wanted, but he didn't do anything like that. He said, 'I'm going to explain the rules of the warren and the conditions on which you'll live here. You must listen carefully, because the rules are to be kept and any breaking of them will be punished. So then I spoke up at once and said that there was a misunderstanding. We were an embassy, I said, come from another warren to ask for Efrafa's goodwill and help. And I went on to explain that all we wanted was their agreement to our persuading a few does to come back with us. When I'd finished, General Woundwort said that it was out of the question: there was nothing to discuss. I replied that we'd like to stay with them for a day or two and try to persuade them to change their mind.
' 'Oh, yes, he said, 'you'll stay. But there'll be no further occasion for you to take up the Council's time-for the next few days at any rate.
'I said that seemed very hard. Our request was surely a reasonable one. And I was just going to ask them to consider one or two things from our point of view, when another of the Councillors-a very old rabbit-said, 'You seem to think you're here to argue with us and drive a bargain. But we're the ones to say what you're going to do.
'I said they should remember that we were representing another warren, even if it was smaller than theirs. We thought of ourselves as their guests. And it was only when I'd said that that I realized with a horrible shock that they thought of us as their prisoners: or as good as prisoners, whatever
'Well, I'd rather say no more about the end of that meeting. Strawberry tried all he could to help me. He spoke very well about the decency and comradeship natural to animals. 'Animals don't behave like men, he said. 'If they have to fight, they fight; and if they have to kill they kill. But they don't sit down and set their wits to work to devise ways of spoiling other creatures' lives and hurting them. They have dignity and animality.
'But it was all no use. At last we fell silent and General Woundwort said, 'The Council can't spare any more time for you now, and I shall have to leave it to your Mark captain to tell you the rules. You'll join the Right Flank Mark under Captain Bugloss. Later, we shall see you again and you'll find us perfectly friendly and helpful to rabbits who understand what's expected of them.
'So then the Owsla took us out to join the Right Flank Mark. Apparently Captain Bugloss was too busy to see us and I took care to keep out of his way, because I thought he might want to start marking us then and there. But soon I began to understand what Hyzenthlay had meant when she said the system wasn't working properly any more. The burrows were overcrowded-at least by our standards. It was easy to escape attention. Even in one Mark the rabbits don't all know each other. We found places in a burrow and tried to get some sleep, but early in the night we were woken and told to silflay. I thought there might be a chance to run for it in the moonlight, but there seemed to be sentries everywhere. And besides the sentries, the Captain kept two runners with him, whose job was to rush off at once in any direction from which an alarm might be given.
'When we'd fed we went underground again. Nearly all the rabbits were very subdued and docile. We avoided them, because we meant to escape if we could and we didn't want to get known. But try as I would, I couldn't think of a plan.
'We fed again some time before ni-Frith the next day, and then it was back underground. The time dragged terribly. At last-it must have been as evening was coming on-I joined a little group of rabbits listening to a story. And do you know, it was 'The King's Lettuce'? The rabbit who was telling it was nowhere near as good as Dandelion, but I listened all the same, just for something to do. And it was when he got to the bit where El-
