It was during one of their puzzled halts that El-ahrairah became sure of something of which he had already been half aware for some time past. There was some other creature in the comical field as well as themselves--someone on the move like them. He could hear it: now far off; now, so it seemed, close by. This disturbed him, for rabbits, as you all know, by nature tend to be afraid of anything unfamiliar and particularly of any strange creature nearby which they cannot hear or see clearly. He and Rabscuttle remained perfectly still, staring at each other. They both felt alarmed.
"Should we join it, do you think?" asked El-ahrairah after a while. "It might be able to show us the way out."
"Don't make any mistake, master," replied Rabscuttle. "I don't know who or what it is, but I know it's searching for us, and if it finds us it means to kill us. We're being hunted."
They both began to run then: a panic flight, one way and another, not knowing where they were going. It was like a nightmare, a flight without direction or purpose, against all rabbit nature. For as you all know, in the normal way a rabbit knows where the danger lies or where the enemy is, and runs in the opposite direction. But here, among the paths of the comical field, they could not tell where the danger lay; nor could they run directly away from their pursuer, for every path twisted, came to a dead end or turned back on itself. For all they knew, they might be running straight toward this unknown enemy, the dread of whom clutched at their hearts more direly with every moment that passed. Up and down, back and forth, they ran, feeling not only helplessness and terror but also growing exhaustion.
At last, in the gathering darkness, they sank down together in a place where one of the hedges ended, leaving a gap which led into a straight path beyond.
"I can't go any further, master," gasped Rabscuttle. "I'm worn out. And look, we're going in circles. We've been this way before. There's the hraka I passed, on the ground."
At this, El-ahrairah realized the utter futility of their flight. He turned his head to look back at the way they had come, and it was at this moment that he saw for the first time, behind them, their approaching pursuer.
In afteryears El-ahrairah would never describe what he saw, and only once did he ever speak of it. This was when some rabbit once said to him, "But you saw and talked with the Black Rabbit of Inle. How could this be worse?"
"The Black Rabbit," replied El-ahrairah, "inspired a terrible, indescribable awe: helplessness and the fear of endless darkness. But he is not wicked, evil or cruel." And not a word more would he say.
As the dreadful malignant horror broke into a run upon seeing him, El-ahrairah dashed through the gap beside them, with Rabscuttle hard on his heels. And there they saw before them the way out, which they must have overlooked when they came along that path earlier.
"If that way out didn't move of its own accord," Rabscuttle used to say, "I'd still be ready to believe it did. I'd believe anything of that place."
Once out, they ran fast over the open grass, yet instinctively they knew that they would not be pursued further. "It won't go beyond its own place," said El-ahrairah.
Soon they saw Greenweed at silflay by himself in the last light. As they came up to him he jumped, stared at them with a kind of terrified incredulity and tried to run away. El-ahrairah pinned him down.
"So it didn't work for once, Greenweed," he said. "You contemptible, lying creature. It's all clear enough now. That--that wicked being has allowed you to live here and protected you from the elil to suit himself. It was your business to seem to befriend any rabbits who came this way and encourage them to go into that place, simply for amusement, as they supposed. Then, when they had gone in, you told your master."
The wretched Greenweed answered him never a word. He plainly thought El-ahrairah was going to kill him.
"Well, you won't do it anymore," said El-ahrairah at length. "You'll come with us tomorrow and we'll find somewhere else for you to live out your days like a decent rabbit."
Greenweed set out with them next day, and they left him in the first warren they came to. El-ahrairah said nothing to its Chief Rabbit about Greenweed's despicable treachery, saying only that he was too old to journey with them. They never heard any more of him.
9
The Story of the Great Marsh
He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry
clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
PSALM 40:2
It was not long after dawn on a fine, clear morning close to midsummer. El-ahrairah and Rabscuttle were making their way over a low saddle between two hills of the grassy country they were crossing on their journey home. Clumps of oxeye daisies were already in bloom here and there, and there were patches of mauve sainfoin. As they stopped to nibble the fresh grass, a light breeze began to blow, bringing from below scents of sheep and river plants.
Ahead of them lay the kind of country with which they were familiar. On the sunset side, however, the fields were bordered by marshland, extending north as far as they could see. A man was at work cutting reeds, but otherwise the whole valley was still and quiet.
The rabbits, descending unhurriedly, came to a field that lay near the marsh and ended on the opposite side in a long bank topped by a hedge of hawthorn and elder. In t
his were a number of rabbit holes, and as they reached it two rabbits came out and halted, watching their approach. El-ahrairah greeted them and remarked on the fine weather.
"Hlessil, are you?" said one of the rabbits. The other stared at El-ahrairah's mutilated ears but said nothing.
"Yes, I suppose we are," replied El-ahrairah. "We've been wandering for quite some time, but now we could do with a few days' rest. Do you think we might be allowed to stay here? I like the look of this warren, and if it's not overcrowded, perhaps no one would mind if it's not overcrowded, perhaps no one would mind if we stopped for a bit."
"That'll be for our Chief to say, of course," replied the second rabbit. "Would you like to come and meet him? I shouldn't think he'll mind you staying. He's very easygoing as a rule."
The rabbits made their way along the bank, stopping beside a group of four or five holes at the further end.