The post of the foe;
Where he stands, the Arch Fear in a visible form,
Yet the strong man must go.
Robert Browning Prospice
'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 soldiers 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 tunnelling. 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 store-room 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 enought 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 Inle!"
'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 Inle. 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 Inle 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 Inle 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 revenge any rabbit who may chance to be destroyed without the consent of himself. Anyone who has seen a game-keeper'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 su
ccess. 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 travelling, 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 upwards, over splinters of slate, among grey 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 Inle, 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 smelt 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."