'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 got to be killed.'
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 recross 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 fore-paw 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.'