Hyzenthlay placed herself between Nyreem and the rat. As she did so, a feathered mass, clawed and smelling of blood, fell upon them from above, without a sound. Instantly, before she even had time to be afraid, it was gone and the rat with it, horribly pierced in its talons.
"What's happened? Oh, what was it?" cried Nyreem, pressing close against her.
"An owl," replied Hyzenthlay. "It's gone away now. There's nothing to be afraid of, dear. I'm here. You go back to sleep."
She herself fell asleep again, this time thinking with a kind of sullen indifference that everything had happened which could happen and anyway she was past caring.
When she woke it was a little after sunrise, and a blackbird was singing in the beech tree as though there were no such thing as fear in the world. Nyreem, too, woke, and she asked her whether the leg felt any better. The swelling had certainly gone down a good deal, and she was able to limp a few steps. Hyzenthlay told her to lie down again and go on resting. She herself went and had a look round, then bit off a burnet and some sorrel leaves, which they ate together, lying in the sunshine as it grew gradually warmer.
Hyzenthlay asked Nyreem why she had joined the rabbits leaving Efrafa. The little doe replied that she had wanted to be like Quiens, an older rabbit whom she greatly admired. "That's how I hurt my leg," she said. "Quiens jumped right down a steep bank and I followed her, but it was too much for me. I thought at first I'd broken my leg. I know it was a silly thing to do, but they were very kind about it. I do hope they all got safely to your warren last night."
As the sun climbed slowly toward ni-Frith, Hyzenthlay wondered whether to press Nyreem to do her best to go on. She certainly did not want them to spend another night in the open. It was a difficult decision, but it was one that would have to be made. Finally she thought that the thing to do would be to wait until the evening and then encourage Nyreem to do the best she could. Head in the grass, she settled down patiently to watch the insect world amid the sun and dew. She could perceive no purpose whatever in their clamberings among the grass blades. She herself lay so still that the blackbird, looking for something to eat, alighted beside her and pecked here and there for a while before fluttering on.
It was a very long day. The only movement was that of the thin grass shadows and of the clouds passing above. Both were so smooth and regular that they did nothing to break the monotony. During the late afternoon the heat slowly lessened, and she dozed once more, becoming alert only when a pair of goldfinches alighted close by, stripped the seeds from the taller grasses and bobbed restlessly away.
A few moments later she started up in alarm, raising her ears to listen tensely and looking one way and another with staring eyes. Some animal was coming through the grass, an animal fully as big as herself, if not bigger. It was downwind of her, and she could smell nothing; but she could see the disturbed grass moving in a steady progression toward her. Instinctively she crouched down, her back legs drawn up under her, ready to leap.
The next thing she knew, the long grass parted and Bigwig appeared.
"Bigwig!" cried Hyzenthlay, overcome with relief and feeling sure on the instant that all her problems were as good as solved. "Bigwig! Why ever are you here?"
"Oh, well, I--er--I was just--er--having a bit of a stroll, you know," replied Bigwig in some embarrassment. "I--er--thought you might be somewhere about, sort of. How are you?" he said, turning to Nyreem. "Leg better now? Your Efrafan friends are all waiting for you and hoping you'll be back with them this evening. Just see what you can do with it, because I think it's time we were going."
"Oh, I'm sure I'll be quite all right now, sir," answered Nyreem. "If we don't go too fast, I'm sure I'll manage very well, no danger."
"Good!" said Bigwig. "Come on, then. I'll keep on one side of you and--er"--he choked slightly--"Hyzenthlayrah will keep on the other. You'll do fine."
They set off slowly, Nyreem hobbling as best she could, determined not to complain. As near as she could guess, this must be none other than Thlayli, the renowned captain of the Watership Owsla, who had defeated the terrible General Woundwort in underground combat. She stole a sideways glance. Yes, it must be he. He was scarred all over, and on his head was the tuft of fur which had given him his name. Had he actually come out to look for her? Or, more likely, for Hyzenthlay, who was talking across her and telling Thlayli about the rat and the owl. Apparently they regarded looking after her as all in a day's work and simply part of their duty as officers. They regarded themselves as responsible for any Watership rabbit, however insignificant. So this was what it meant to be a Watership rabbit? Then and there, she resolved never to do anything that might forfeit her place in the warren.
They arrived home a little before nightfall, to find Hazel and Silver pretending to be concluding a late silflay but in actuality watching out for them. Nyreem, almost too overawed to thank them, rejoined her Efrafan companions and told them about her adventure. Even Quiens seemed favorably impressed, and Nyreem could not help feeling that she had made quite a good start in the new warren.
17
Sandwort
For they are impudent children and stiffhearted.
EZEKIEL 2:4
After two or three days, Nyreem's injured leg had completely recovered and she had settled into the warren as smoothly as any of the new arrivals from Efrafa; that is, until the time when she became an admirer of Sandwort's.
Sandwort, a strongly built and self-willed young buck, was no more than a few months old when he began to attract criticism from several of the older rabbits.
"You'd better keep an eye on that young Sandwort of yours," remarked Silver one day to his mother, a quiet, gentle doe named Melsa, a descendant of Clover, one of the rabbits from Nuthanger Farm. "He was plain insolent to me this morning; I had to cuff him over the head."
"I can't do anything with him," replied Melsa. "He's got no respect for me, or for any other rabbit, come to that. The trouble is he's very big and strong for his age, and he's influenced quite a few of the younger rabbits to admire him and see him as a sort of leader."
"Well, you'd better tell him to think a bit less of himself," said Silver, "if he doesn't want to get on the wrong side of Hazel-rah and Bigwig; or of me either, for that matter." He liked Melsa and on that account was content to leave it there, for the moment, anyway.
It was Sandwort, however, who soon showed himself of no mind to leave it there. Before long, others among the veteran rabbits were complaining of his behavior. He had disregarded Holly, who had told him to get back out of sight in the long grass when men were coming up the Down. He had refused point-blank to obey Speedwell, a quiet and easygoing rabbit if ever there was one, when told one evening to take his scuffling companions out of the Honeycomb and find somewhere else to tussle and brawl. "We've got as much right to be here as you," he said; and Speedwell, faced by a small crowd of Sandwort's hangers-on, had felt it best to say no more and himself to leave the Honeycomb.
In short, it soon became plain that Sandwort did not regard himself as subordi
nate to any rabbit in the warren. In such a free-and-easy society this was not particularly obtrusive until he began persuading other young rabbits, both male and female, to accompany him on expeditions beyond the warren and refusing to say where they were going or where they had been.
"I don't have to tell you or any other rabbit where I've been," he replied one evening to Silver, who had met and questioned him returning with two or three others from what had evidently been a long and exhausting excursion. "I can go where I please and it's no one else's business."
On this occasion, however, he put himself in a false position, since not only Silver but several of the older rabbits noticed that he had come back with one rabbit fewer than he had taken out.