The king looked down at the guilty traitor; the traitor hung his head. Presently the king said: "Weasel, false and double-tongued weasel, did I not choose you to be my chiefest and most secret counsellor? Did you not know everything? Did I not consult you on every occasion, and were you not promoted to high honour and dignity? And you have repaid me by plotting against my throne, and against my life; the gnat has told me everything, and it is of no avail for you to deny it. You double traitor, false to me and false to those other traitors who met in this very place to conspire against me. It is true you were not among them in person, but why were you not among them? Do you suppose that I am to be deceived for a moment? Wretch that you are. You set them on to plot against me while you kept out of it with clean paws, that you might seize the throne so soon as I was slain. Wretch that you are."

Here the weasel could not endure it any longer, but crawling to the foot of the tree, besought the king with tears in his eyes to do what he would—to order him to instant execution, but not to reproach him with these enormities, which cut him to the very soul. But the more he pleaded, the more angry Kapchack became, and heaped such epithets upon the crouching wretch, and so bitterly upbraided him that at last the weasel could bear it no more, but driven as it were into a corner, turned to bay, and faced the enraged monarch.

He sat up, and looking Kapchack straight in the face, as none but so hardened a reprobate could have done, he said, in a low but very distinct voice: "You have no right to say these things to me, any more than you have to wear the crown! I do not believe you are Kapchack at all—you are an impostor!"

At these words Kapchack became as pale as death, and could not keep his perch upon the pollard, but fluttered down to the ground beside the weasel. He was so overcome that for a moment or two he could not speak. When he found breath, he turned to the weasel and asked him what he meant. The weasel, who had now regained his spirits, said boldly enough that he meant what he said; he did not believe that the king was really Kapchack.

"But I am Kapchack," said the king, trembling, and not knowing how much the weasel knew.

In truth the weasel knew very little, but had only shot a bolt at random from the bow of his suspicions, but he had still a sharper shaft to shoot, and he said: "You are an impostor, for you told La Schach, who has jilted you, that you were not so old as you looked."

"The false creature!" said Kapchack, quite beside himself with rage. In his jealousy of Prince Tchack-tchack, who was so much younger, and had two eyes, he had said this, and now he bitterly repented his vanity. "The false creature!" he screamed, "where is she? I will have her torn to pieces! She shall be pecked limb from limb! Where is she?" he shrieked. "She left the palace yesterday evening, and I have not seen her since."

"She went to the firs with the jay," said the weasel. "He is her old lover, you know. Did you not see how merry he was just now, at the council?"

Then Kapchack pecked up the ground with his beak, and tore at it with his claws, and gave way to his impotent anger.

"There shall not be a feather of her left!" he said. "I will have her utterly destroyed! She shall be nailed to a tree!"

"Nothing of the kind," said the weasel, with a sneer. "She is too beautiful. As soon as you see her, you will kiss her and forgive her."

"It is true," said Kapchack, becoming calmer. "She is so beautiful, she must be forgiven. Weasel, in consideration of important services rendered to the state in former days, upon this one occasion you shall be pardoned. Of course the condition is that what has passed between us this day is kept strictly private, and that you do not breathe a word of it."

"Not a word of it," said the weasel.

"And you must disabuse your mind of that extraordinary illusion as to my identity of which you spoke just now. You must dismiss so absurd an idea from your mind."

"Certainly," said the weasel, "it is dismissed entirely. But, your majesty, with your permission, I would go further. I would endeavour to explain to you, that although my conduct was indiscreet, and so far open to misconstruction, there was really nothing more in it than an ill-directed zeal in your service. It is really true, your majesty, that all the birds and animals are leagued against me, and that is why I have been afraid to stir abroad. I was invited to the secret council, of which you have heard from the gnat, and because I did not attend it, they have one and all agreed to vilify me to your majesty.

"But in fact I, for once, with the service of your majesty in view, descended (repugnant as it was to my feelings) to play the eavesdropper, and I overheard all that was said, and I can convince your majesty that there are far greater traitors in your dominions than you ever supposed me to be. The gnat does not know half that took place at the council, for he only had it second-hand from that villain, the fox, who is, I believe, secretly bent on your destruction. But I can tell you not only all that went on—I can also relate to you the designs of Kauc, the crow, who conferred with Cloctaw in private, after the meeting was over. And I can also give you good reasons for suspecting Ki Ki, the hawk, whom you have just nominated to the command of your forces, of the intention of making a bargain with Choo Hoo, and of handing you over to him a prisoner."

Now this last was a pure invention of the weasel's out of envy, since Ki Ki had obtained such distinction. Kapchack, much alarmed at these words, ordered him to relate everything in order, and the weasel told him all that had been said at the council, all that Kauc, the crow, had said to Cloctaw, and a hundred other matters which he made up himself. When Kapchack heard these things he was quite confounded, and exclaimed that he was surrounded with traitors, and that he did not see which way to turn. He hopped a little way off, in order the better to consider by himself, and leant his head upon one side.

First he thought to himself: "I must take the command from Ki Ki, but I cannot do that suddenly, lest he should go over to Choo Hoo. I will therefore do it gradually. I will countermand the order for an immediate attack; that will give me time to arrange. Who is to take Ki Ki's place? Clearly the weasel, for though he is an archtraitor, yet he is in the same boat with me; for I know it to be perfectly true that all of them are bitter against him."

So he went back to the weasel, and told him that he should give him the chief command of the forces, on the third day following, and meantime told him to come early in the evening to the drain which passed under the orchard, where his palace was, so that he could concert the details of this great state business in secret with him.

The weasel, beyond measure delighted at the turn things had taken, and rejoicing extremely at the impending fall of Ki Ki, whom he hated, thanked Kapchack with all his might, till Kapchack, enjoining on him the necessity of secrecy, said "Good-afternoon"; and flew away towards the firs, where his guard was waiting for him. Then the weasel, puffed up and treading the ground proudly, went back to his cave in the elm, and Bevis, seeing that there was nothing more going on that day, stole back to the raspberry canes.

None of them had noticed, not even the cunning weasel, that the mole, when the council broke up, had not left with the rest: indeed, being under the surface of the earth, they easily overlooked him. Now the mole, who hated the weasel beyond all, had waited to have the pleasure of hearing King Kapchack upbraid the traitor, and presently consign him to execution. Fancy then his feelings when, after all, the weasel was received into the highest favour, and promised the supreme command of the army, while he himself was not even noticed, though he was a clever engineer, and could mine and countermine, and carry on siege operations better than any of them.

He listened to all that was said attentively, and then, so soon as Kapchack had flown away, and the weasel had gone to his hole, and Bevis to the raspberries, he drove a tunnel to the edge of the copse, and there calling a fly, sent him with a message to the hawk, asking Ki Ki to meet him beside the leaning stone in the field (which Bevis had once passed), because he had a secret to communicate which would brook no delay. At the same time, as Kapchack was flying to the firs where his guards were waiting, it occurred to him that, although he had no alternative, it was dangerous in the extreme to trust the army to the weasel, who, perhaps, just as there was an opportunity of victory, would retire, and leave him to be destroyed. Thinking about this, he perched on a low hawthorn bush, and asked himself whether it was worth while to attempt to defend a kingdom held under such precarious tenure. Would it not be better to make terms with Choo Hoo, who was not unreasonable, and to divide the territory, and thus reign in peace and safety over half at least,—making it, of course, a condition of the compact that Choo Hoo should help him to put down all domestic traitors?

The idea seemed so good that, first glancing round to see that he was not observed, he called a thrush, who had been coming to the hawthorn, but dared not enter it while the king was there. The thrush, much frightened, came as he was bid, and Kapchack carefully instructed him in what he was to do. Having learnt his message by heart, the thrush, delighted beyond expression at so high a negotiation being entrusted to him, flew straight away towards Choo Hoo's camp. But not unobserved; for just then Ki Ki, wheeling in the air at an immense height, whither he had gone to survey the scene of war, chanced to look down and saw him quit the king, and marked the course he took. Kapchack, unaware that Ki Ki had detected this manoeuvre, now returned to his guards, and flew to his palace.

Meantime the weasel, curled up on his divan in the elm, was thinking over the extraordinary good fortune that had befallen him. Yet such was his sagacity that even when thus about to attain almost the topmost pinnacle of his ambition, he did not forget the instability of affairs, but sought to confirm his position, or even to advance it. He reflected that Kapchack was not only cunning beyond everything ever known, but he was just now a prey to anxieties, and consumed with jealousy, which upset the tenor of his mind, so that his course could not be depended upon, but might be changed in a moment. The favour of a despotic monarch was never a firm staff to lean upon; when that monarch was on the brink of a crisis which threatened both his throne and his life, his smile might become a frown before any one was aware that a change was impending.

Impressed with these ideas, the weasel asked himself how he could at once secure his position and advance himself to further dignity. He considered that up to the present the forces of Kapchack had always been compelled to retreat before the overwhelming masses thrown against them by Choo Hoo. He could scarcely hope under the most favourable circumstances to do more than defend the frontier, and should Choo Hoo win the battle, Kapchack would either be taken prisoner, or, what was not at all unlikely, fall a victim during the confusion, and be assassinated, perhaps, by the villainous crow. Where, then, would be his own high command? But by making terms with Choo Hoo he might himself obtain the throne, and reign perfectly secure as Choo Hoo's regent.

On coming to this conclusion, he called to his old friend the humble-bee, and said he desired to send a message to Choo Hoo, the purport of which must not be divulged to any flower upon the route. The humble-bee instantly guessed that this message must be something to the injury of Kapchack, and resenting the manner in which he had been hustled from the council, declared that he would carry it without a moment's delay.

"Go then, my friend," said the weasel. "Go straight to Choo Hoo, and say: 'The weasel is appointed to the command of King Kapchack's army, and will supersede Ki Ki, the hawk, upon the third day. On that day he will lead forth the army to the south, professing to go upon a flank march, and to take you in the rear. Be not deceived by this movement, but so soon as you see that the guards are withdrawn from the frontier, cross the border in force, and proceed straight towards the palace. When Kapchack's army finds you between it and its base of supplies it will disperse, and you will obtain an easy victory.

"'And in proof of his good-will towards you, the weasel, furthermore, bade me inform you of the great secret which has hitherto been preserved with such care, and which will enable your army to remain in this place all the winter. In the squirrel's copse there is a spring, which is never frozen, but always affords excellent drinking water, and moistens a considerable extent of ground.'" This was the weasel's message, and without a moment's delay the humble-bee buzzed away direct to Choo Hoo's camp.

At the same time the fly with the mole's message reached Ki Ki, the hawk, as he was soaring among the clouds. Ki Ki, having finished his observations, and full of suspicions as to the object with which the king had despatched the thrush to Choo Hoo, decided to keep the mole's appointment at once, so down he flew direct to the leaning stone in the meadow, where Bevis had gathered the cowslips, and found the mole already waiting for him.

Now, the mole hated Ki Ki exceedingly, because, as previously related, he had killed his wife, but he hated the weasel, who had persecuted him all his life, even more, and by thus betraying the weasel to the hawk he hoped to set the two traitors by the ears, and to gratify his own vengeance by seeing them tear each other to pieces. Accordingly he now informed Ki Ki of everything—how the weasel had disclosed the names of all those who attended the secret meeting (except one, i.e., the owl, which, for reasons of his own, the weasel had suppressed), particularly stating that Ki Ki had taken a foremost part, that Kapchack was enraged against the hawk, and had already promised the weasel the chief command, so that in three days Ki Ki would be superseded.

Ki Ki, suppressing his agitation, thanked the mole very cordially for his trouble, and soared towards the sky, but he had scarce gone a hundred yards before one of Kapchack's body-guard met him with a message from the king countermanding the advance of the army which had been decided upon. Ki Ki replied that his majesty's orders should be implicitly obeyed and continued his upward flight. He had now no doubt that what the mole had told him was correct in every particular, since it had been so immediately confirmed; and as for the thrush, it seemed clear that Kapchack had some design of saving himself by the sacrifice of his friends. That must be his reasons for countermanding the advance—to give time for negotiation. Angry beyond measure, Ki Ki flew to his own clump of trees, and calling to him a keen young hawk—one of his guard, and who was only too delighted to be selected for confidential employment—sent him with a flag of truce to Choo Hoo.

He was to say that Ki Ki, being disgusted with the treachery of King Kapchack, had determined to abandon his cause, and that on the day of battle, in the midst of the confusion, if Choo Hoo would push forward rapidly, Ki Ki would draw off his contingent and expose the centre, when Kapchack must inevitably be destroyed. Away flew the hawk, and thus in one hour Choo Hoo received three messengers.



CHAPTER X.

TRAITORS.

The first that arrived was the thrush, hearing the message from the king. Choo Hoo, delighted beyond expression at so pleasant a solution of the business, which he knew must, if it came to battle, entail great slaughter of his friends, received the thrush with the highest honours, called his principal counsellors around him, and acceded to everything King Kapchack had proposed. The territory should be equally divided: Choo Hoo to have the plains, and Kapchack the woods and hills, and peace should be proclaimed, Choo Hoo engaging to support Kapchack against all domestic enemies and traitors. This treaty having been completed, the thrush made as if about to depart, but Choo Hoo would in no wise permit this. "Remain with us," he said, "my dear Thrush, till the evening; feast and make merry."

So the thrush was surrounded with a guard of honour, and conducted to the choicest feeding places, and regaled upon the fat of the land. Thus enjoying himself, he thought it was the happiest day of his life, and was not at all desirous of seeing the shadows lengthen.

Hardly had the thrush gone with his guard to the banquet, than the humble-bee was announced, bearing the message from the weasel. To this the assembled counsellors listened attentively, but Choo Hoo, being only a barbarian, could on no account break faith, but was resolved to carry out his compact with King Kapchack. Nevertheless, he reflected that the king was extremely cunning, and not altogether to be relied upon (the humble-bee, for aught he knew, might have been in reality sent by Kapchack to try him), and therefore he would go so far as this, he would encourage the weasel without committing himself. "Return," he said to the humble-bee, "return to him who sent you, and say: 'Do you do your part, and Choo Hoo will certainly do his part'." With which ambiguous sentence (which of course the weasel read in his own sense) he dismissed the humble-bee, who had scarce departed from the camp, than the flag of truce arrived from Ki Ki, and the young hawk, bright and defiant in his bearing, was admitted to the great Emperor Choo Hoo.

When the council heard his message they all cried with one accord: "Koos-takke! koos-takke! the enemy are confounded; they are divided against each other. They are delivered over to us. Koos-takke!"

So soon as there was silence, Choo Hoo said:—

"Young sir, tell your master that we do not need his assistance," and he waved the messenger to depart.

But the hawk said: "Mighty emperor, consider that I am young, and that if I go to my master with so curt a message, you know that he is fierce beyond reason, and I shall infallibly be torn to pieces".

"Very well," said Choo Hoo, speaking in a harsh tone of voice, for he hated the whole race of hawks, and could scarce respect the flag of truce, "very well, tell your master the reason I do not want his assistance is, first, because Kapchack and I have concluded a treaty; secondly, because the weasel has been before him, and has told me where the secret spring is in the squirrel's copse—the spring that does not freeze in winter."

The hawk, not daring to parley further with the emperor, bowed his way out, and went direct to Ki Ki with this reply.

All the council of Choo Hoo rejoiced exceedingly, both at the treaty which assured so peaceful and pleasant a conclusion to their arduous labours, and to a sanguinary war which had lasted so many years, and in which they had lost so many of their bravest, and also at the treachery which prevailed in Kapchack's palace and confounded his efforts. They cried "Koos-takke!" and the shout was caught up throughout the camp with such vehemence that the woods echoed to the mysterious sound.

Now the young hawk, winging his way swiftly through the air, soon arrived at the trees where Ki Ki was waiting for him, and delivered the answer in fear and trembling, expecting every moment to be dashed to the ground and despatched. Ki Ki, however, said nothing, but listened in silence, and then sat a long time thinking.

Presently he said: "You have done ill, and have not given much promise of your future success; you should not have taken Choo Hoo's answer so quickly. You should have argued with him, and used your persuasive powers. Moreover, being thus admitted to the very presence of our greatest enemy, and standing face to face with him, and within a few inches of his breast, you should have known what it was your business to do. I could not tell you beforehand, because it would have been against my dignity to seem to participate before the deed in things of that kind. To you the opportunity was afforded, but you had not the ready wit either to see or to seize it.

"While Choo Hoo was deliberating you should have flown at his breast, and despatched the archrebel with one blow of your beak. In the confusion you could have escaped with ease. Upon such a catastrophe becoming known, the whole of Choo Hoo's army would have retreated, and hanging upon their rear we could have wreaked our wills upon them. As for you, you would have obtained fame and power; as for me, I should have retained the chief command; as for Kapchack, he would have rewarded you with untold wealth. But you missed—you did not even see—this golden opportunity, and you will never have another such a chance."

At this the young hawk hung his head, and could have beaten himself to death against the tree, in shame and sorrow at his folly.

"But," continued Ki Hi, "as I see you are unfeignedly sorry, I will even yet entrust you with one more commission (the hawk began to brighten up a little). You know that at the end of the Long Pond there is a very large wood which grows upon a slope; at the foot of the slope there is an open space or glade, which is a very convenient spot for an ambush. Now when the thrush comes home in the evening, bringing the treaty to Kapchack, he is certain to pass that way, because it is the nearest, and the most pleasant. Go there and stay in ambush till you hear him coming, then swoop down and kill him, and tear his heart from his breast. Do not fail, or never return to my presence.

"And stay—you may be sure of the place I mean, because there is an old oak in the midst of the glade, it is old and dead, and the route of the thrush will be under it. Strike him there."

Without waiting a moment, the hawk, knowing that his master liked instant obedience, flew off swift as the wind, determined this time to succeed. He found the glade without trouble, and noted the old oak with its dead gaunt boughs, and then took up his station on an ash, where he watched eagerly for the shadows to lengthen. Ki Ki, after sitting a little longer, soared up into the sky to reflect upon further measures. By destroying the thrush he knew that the war must continue, for Choo Hoo would never believe but that it had been done by Kapchack's order, and could not forgive so brutal an affront to an ambassador charged with a solemn treaty. Choo Hoo must then accept his (Ki Ki's) offer; the weasel, it was true, had been before him, but he should be able to destroy the weasel's influence by revealing his treachery to Kapchack, and how he had told Choo Hoo the secret of the spring which was never frozen. He felt certain that he should be able to make his own terms, both with Kapchack and Choo Hoo.

Thus soaring up he saw his messenger, the young hawk, swiftly speeding to the ambush, and smiled grimly as he noted the eager haste with which the youthful warrior went to fulfil his orders. Still soaring, with outstretched wings, he sought the upper sky.

Meantime Bevis had grown tired of waiting for the squirrel, who had gone off to see about the stores, and flung himself at full length on the moss under the oak. He hardly stopped there a minute before he got up again and called and shouted for the squirrel, but no one answered him; nor did the dragon-fly appear. Bevis, weary of waiting, determined to try and find his way home by himself, but when he came to look round he could not discover the passage through the thicket. As he was searching for it he passed the elm, which was hollow inside, where the weasel lay curled up on his divan, and the weasel, hearing Bevis go by, was so puffed up with pride that he actually called to him, having conceived a design of using Bevis for his own purposes.

"Sir Bevis! Sir Bevis!" he said, coming to the mouth of his hole, "Sir Bevis, I want to speak to you!"

"You are the weasel," said Bevis, "I know your hateful voice—I hate you, and if ever I find you outside the copse I will smash you into twenty pieces. If it was not for the squirrel, whom I love (and I have promised not to hurt anything in his copse), I would bring my papa's hatchet, and chop your tree down and cut your head off; so there."

"If you did that," said the weasel, "then you would not know what the rat is going to do in your house to-night."

"Why should I not know?" said Bevis.

"Because if you cut my head off I could not tell you."

"Well, tell me what it is," said Bevis, who was always very curious, "and make haste about it, for I want to go home."

"I will," said the weasel, "and first of all, you know the fine large cake that your mamma is making for you?"

"No," said Bevis, excitedly. "Is she making me a cake? I did not know it."

"Yes, that she is, but she did not tell you, because she wished it to be a surprise to you to-morrow morning at lunch, and it is no use for you to ask her about it, for she would not tell you. But if you are not very sharp it is certain that you will never touch a mouthful of it."

"Why not?" said Bevis.

"Because," said the weasel, "the mouse has found out where your mamma has put it in the cupboard, and there is a little chink through which he can smell it, but he cannot quite get through, nor is he strong enough to gnaw such very hard wood, else you may depend he would have kept the secret to himself. But as he could not creep through he has gone and told Raoul, the rat, who has such strong teeth he can bite a way through anything, and to-night, when you are all in bed and firm asleep, and everything is quiet, Yish, the mouse, is going to show the rat where the chink is, the rat is going to gnaw a hole, and in the morning there will be very little left of your cake."

"I will tell the bailiff," said Bevis, in a rage, "and the bailiff shall set a trap for the rat."

"Well, that was what I was going to suggest," said the weasel; "but upon consideration I am not so sure that it is much use telling the bailiff, because, as I daresay you recollect, the bailiff has often tried his hand setting up a trap for the rat, but has never yet caught him, from which I conclude that the rat knows all the places where the bailiff sets the trap, and takes good care not to go that way without previous examination."

"I'll set up the trap," said Bevis, "I'll set it up myself in a new place. Let me see, where can I put it?"

"I think it would be a very good plan if you did put it up yourself," said the weasel, "because there is no doubt you understand more about these things than the bailiff, who is getting old."

"Yes," said Bevis, "I know all about it—I can do it very well indeed."

"Just what I thought," said the weasel; "I thought to myself, Bevis knows all about it—Bevis can do it. Now, as the bailiff has set up the trap by the drain or grating beside the cart-house, and under the wood-pile, and by the pump, and has never caught the rat, it is clear that the rat knows these places as well as the bailiff, and if you remember there is a good deal of grass grows there, so that the rat no doubt says to himself: 'Aha! They are sure to put the trap here, because they think I shall not see it in the grass—as if I was so silly.' So that, depend upon it, he is always very careful how he goes through the grass there.

"Therefore I think the best place you could select to set up the trap would be somewhere where there is no kind of cover, no grass, nor anything, where it is quite bare and open, and where the rat would run along quickly and never think of any danger. And he would be sure to run much faster and not stay to look under his feet in crossing such places, lest Pan should see him and give chase, or your papa should come round the corner with a gun. Now I know there is one such place the rat passes every evening; it is a favourite path of his, because it is a short cut to the stable—it is under the wall of the pig-sty. I know this, because I once lived with the rat a little while, and saw all his habits.

"Well, under this wall it is quite open, and he always runs by extremely fast, and that is the best place to put the trap. Now when you have set the trap, in order to hide it from view do you get your little spade with which you dig in your garden, and take a spadeful of the dust that lies about there (as it is so dry there is plenty of dust) and throw it over the trap. The dust will hide the trap, and will also prevent the rat (for he has a wonderful sharp nose of his own) from scenting where your fingers touched it. In the morning you are sure to find him caught.

"By-the-by, you had better not say anything to your mamma that you know of the cake, else perhaps she will move it from the cupboard, and then the rat may go on some other moonlit ramble instead. As I said, in the morning you are sure to find him in the trap, and then do not listen to anything he has to say, for he has a lying tongue, but let Pan loose, who will instantly worry him to death."

"I will do as you say," said Bevis, "for I see that it is a very clever way to catch the rat, but, Sir Weasel, you have told me so many false stories that I can scarce believe you now it is plain you are telling me the truth; nor shall I feel certain that you are this time (for once in your wicked life) saying the truth, unless I know why you are so anxious for the rat to be caught."

"Why," said the weasel, "I will tell you the reason; this afternoon the rat played me a very mean and scurvy trick; he disgraced me before the king, and made me a common laughing-stock to all the council, for which I swore to have his life. Besides, upon one occasion he bit his teeth right through my ear—the marks of it are there still. See for yourself." So the weasel thrust his head out of his hole, and Bevis saw the marks left by the rat's teeth, and was convinced that the weasel, out of malice, had at last been able for once to tell the truth.

"You are a horrid wretch," said Bevis, "still you know how to catch the rat, and I will go home and do it; but I cannot find my way out of this thicket—the squirrel ought to come."

"The way is under the ash bough there," said the weasel, "and when you are outside the thicket turn to your left and go downhill, and you will come to the timber—and meantime I will send for the dragon-fly, who will overtake you."

"All right, horrid wretch," said Bevis, and away he went. Now all this that the weasel had said really was true, except about the cake; it was true that the rat was very careful going through the grass, and that he knew where the bailiff set the gin, and that he used to run very quickly across the exposed place under the wall of the pig-sty. But the story about the cake he had made up out of his cunning head just to set Bevis at work to put up the trap; and he hoped too, that while Bevis was setting up the gin, the spring would slip and pinch his fingers.

By thus catching the rat, the weasel meant in the first place to gratify his own personal malice, and next to get rid of a very formidable competitor. For the rat was very large and very strong, and brave and bold beyond all the others; so much so that the weasel would even have preferred to have a struggle with the fox (though he was so much bigger), whose nostril he could bite, than to meet the rat in fair and equal combat. Besides, he hated the rat beyond measure, because the rat had helped him out of the drain, which was when his ear was bitten through. He intended to go down to the farmyard very early next morning when the rat was caught, and to go as near as he dared and taunt the rat, and tell him how Pan would presently come and crunch up his ribs. To see the rat twist, and hear him groan, would be rare sport; it made his eyes glisten to think of it. He was very desirous that Bevis should find his way home all right, so he at once sent a wasp for the dragon-fly, and the dragon-fly at once started after Bevis.

Just after the weasel had sent the wasp, the humble-bee returned from Choo Hoo, and delivered the emperor's message, which the weasel saw at once was intended to encourage him in his proposed treachery. He thanked the humble-bee for the care and speed with which his errand had been accomplished, and then curled himself up on his divan to go to sleep, so as to be ready to go down early in the morning and torment the rat. As he was very happy since his schemes were prospering, he went to sleep in a minute as comfortable as could be.

Bevis crept through the thicket, and turned to the left, and went down the hill, and found the timber, and then went along the green track till he came to the stile. He got over the bridge and followed the footpath, when the dragon-fly overtook him and apologised most sincerely for his neglect. "For," said he, "we are so busy making ready for the army, and I have had so much to do going to and fro with messages, that, my dear Sir Bevis, you must forgive me for forgetting you. Next time I will send a moth to stay close by you, so that the moment you want me the moth can go and fetch me."

"I will forgive you just this once," said Bevis; and the dragon-fly took him all the way home. After tea Bevis went and found the gin, and tried to set it up under the pig-sty wall, just as the weasel had told him; but at first he could not quite manage it, being as usual in such a hurry.

Now there was a snail on the wall, and the snail looked out of his shell and said: "Sir Bevis, do not be too quick. Believe me, if you are too quick to-day you are sure to be sorry to-morrow."

"You are a stupid snail," said Bevis. Just then, as the weasel had hoped, he pinched his fingers with the spring so hard that tears almost came into his eyes.

"That was your fault," he said to the snail; and snatching the poor thing off the wall, he flung him ever so far; fortunately the snail fell on the grass, and was not hurt, but he said to himself that in future, no matter what he saw going on, he would never interfere, but let people hurt themselves as much as they liked. But Bevis, though he was so hasty, was also very persevering, and presently he succeeded in setting up the trap, and then taking his spade he spread the dust over it and so hid it as the weasel had told him to. He then went and put his spade back in the summer-house, and having told Pan that in the morning there would be a fine big rat for him to worry, went indoors.

Now it is most probable that what the weasel had arranged so well would all have happened just as he foresaw, and that the trap so cleverly set up would have caught the rat, had not the bailiff, when he came home from the fields, chanced to see Bevis doing it. He had to attend to something else then, but by-and-by, when he had finished, he went and looked at the place where Bevis had set the gin, and said to himself: "Well, it is a very good plan to set up the gin, for the rat is always taking the pigs' food, and even had a gnaw at my luncheon, which was tied up in my handkerchief, and which I—like a stupid—left on the ground in my hurry instead of hanging up. But it is a pity Sir Bevis should have set it here, for there is no grass or cover, and the rat is certain to see it, and Bevis will be disappointed in the morning, and will not find the rat. Now I will just move the gin to a place where the rat always comes, and where it will be hidden by the grass, that is, just at the mouth of the drain by the cart-house; it will catch the rat there, and Sir Bevis will be pleased."

So the bailiff, having thought this to himself, as he leant against the wall, and listened to the pigs snoring, carefully took up the gin and moved it down to the mouth of the drain by the cart-house, and there set it up in the grass.

The rat was in the drain, and when he heard the bailiff's heavy footsteps, and the noise he made fumbling about with the trap, he laughed, and said to himself: "Fumble away, you old stupid—I know what you are doing. You are setting up a gin in the same place you have set it twenty times before. Twenty times you have set the gin up there and never caught anything, and yet you cannot see, and you cannot understand, and you never learn anything, and you are the biggest dolt and idiot that ever walked, or rather, you would be, only I thank heaven everybody else is just like you! As if I could not hear what you are doing; as if I did not look very carefully before I come out of my hole, and before I put my foot down on grass or leaves, and as if I could not smell your great clumsy fingers: really I feel insulted that you should treat me as if I was so foolish. However, upon the whole, this is rather nice and considerate of you. Ha! Ha!" and the rat laughed so loud that if the bailiff had been sharp he must have heard this unusual chuckling in the drain. But he heard nothing, but went off down the road very contented with himself, whistling a bar from "Madame Angot" which he had learnt from Bevis.

When Bevis went to bed he just peeped out of the window to look at the moon, but the sky was now overcast, and the clouds were hurrying by, and the wind rising—which the snail had expected, or he would not have ventured out along the wall. While Bevis was peeping out he saw the owl go by over the orchard and up beside the hedge.

The very same evening the young hawk, as has been previously related, had gone to the glade in the wood, and sat there in ambush waiting for the thrush. Like Sir Bevis, the hawk was extremely impatient, and the time as he sat on the ash passed very slowly till at last he observed with much delight that the sun was declining, and that the shadow of the dead oak-tree would soon reach across towards him.

The thrush, having sat at the banquet the whole of the afternoon, and tasted every dainty that the camp of Choo Hoo afforded, surrounded all the time by crowds of pleasant companions, on the other hand, saw the shadows lengthening with regret. He knew that it was time for him to depart and convey the intelligence to King Kapchack that Choo Hoo had fully agreed to his proposal. Still loth to leave he lingered, and it was not until dusk that he quitted the camp, accompanied a little way over the frontier by some of Choo Hoo's chief counsellors, who sought in every way to do him honour. Then wishing him good-night, with many invitations to return shortly, they left him to pursue his journey.

Knowing that he ought to have returned to the king before this, the thrush put forth his best speed, and thought to himself as he flew what a long account he should have to give his wife and his children (who were now grown up) of the high and important negotiation with which he had been entrusted, and of the attentions that had been paid to him by the emperor. Happy in these anticipations, he passed rapidly over the fields and the woods, when just as he flew beneath the old dead oak in the glade down swooped the hawk and bore him to the ground. In an instant a sharp beak was driven into his head, and then, while yet his body quivered, the feathers were plucked from his breast and his heart laid bare. Hungry from his fast, for he had touched nothing that day, being so occupied with his master's business, the hawk picked the bones, and then, after the manner of his kind, wishing to clean his beak, flew up and perched on a large dead bough of the oak just overhead.

The moment he perched, a steel trap which had been set there by the keeper flew up and caught him, with such force that his limbs were broken. With a shriek the hawk flapped his wings to fly, but this only pulled his torn and bleeding legs, and overcome with the agony, he fainted, and hung head downwards from the bough, suspended by his sinews. Now this was exactly what Ki Ki had foreseen would happen. There were a hundred places along the thrush's route where an ambush might have been placed, as well as in the glade, but Ki Ki had observed that a trap was set upon the old dead oak, and ordered his servant to strike the thrush there, so that he might step into it afterwards, thus killing two birds with one stone.

He desired the death of his servant lest he should tell tales, and let out the secret mission upon which he had been employed, or lest he should boast, in the vain glory of youth, of having slain the ambassador. Cruel as he was, Ki Ki, too, thought of the torture the young hawk would endure with delight, and said to himself that it was hardly an adequate punishment for having neglected so golden an opportunity for assassinating Choo Hoo. From the fate of the thrush and the youthful hawk, it would indeed appear that it is not always safe to be employed upon secret business of state. Yet Ki Ki, with all his cruel cunning, was not wholly successful.

For the owl, as he went his evening rounds, after he had flown over the orchard where Bevis saw him, went on up the hedge by the meadow, and skirting the shore of the Long Pond, presently entered the wood and glided across the glade towards the dead oak-tree, which was one of his favourite haunts. As he came near he was horrified to hear miserable groans and moans, and incoherent talking, and directly afterwards saw the poor hawk hanging head downwards. He had recovered his consciousness only to feel again the pressure of the steel, and the sharp pain of his broken limbs, which presently sent him into a delirium.

The owl circling round the tree was so overcome by the spectacle that he too nearly fainted, and said to himself: "It is clear that my lucky star rose to-night, for without a doubt the trap was intended for me. I have perched on that very bough every evening for weeks, and I should have alighted there to-night had not the hawk been before me. I have escaped from the most terrible fate which ever befell any one, to which indeed crucifixion, with an iron nail through the brain, is mercy itself, for that is over in a minute, but this miserable creature will linger till the morning."

So saying, he felt so faint that (first looking very carefully to see that there were no more traps) he perched on a bough a little way above the hawk. The hawk, in his delirium, was talking of all that he had done and heard that day, reviling Ki Ki and Choo Hoo, imploring destruction upon his master's head, and then flapping his wings and so tearing his sinews and grinding his broken bones together, he shrieked with pain. Then again he went on talking about the treaty, and the weasel's treason, and the assassination of the ambassador. The owl, sitting close by, heard all these things, and after a time came to understand what the hawk meant; at first he could not believe that his master, the king, would conclude a treaty without first consulting him, but looking underneath him he saw the feathers of the thrush scattered on the grass, and could no longer doubt that what the hawk said was true.

But when he heard the story of Ki Ki's promised treason on the day of battle, when he heard that the weasel had betrayed the secret of the spring, which did not freeze in winter, he lifted up his claw and opened his eyes still wider in amazement and terror. "Wretched creature!" he said, "what is this you have been saying." But the hawk, quite mad with agony, did not know him, but mistook him for Ki Ki, and poured out such terrible denunciations that the owl, shocked beyond measure, flew away.

As he went, after he had gone some distance under the trees, and could no longer hear the ravings of the tortured hawk, he began to ask himself what he had better do. At first he thought that he would say nothing, but take measures to defeat these traitors. But presently it occurred to him that it was dangerous even to know such things, and he wished that he had never heard what the hawk had said. He reflected, too, that the bats had been flying about some time, and might have heard the hawk's confessions, and although they were not admitted at court, as they belonged to the lower orders, still under such circumstances they might obtain an audience. They had always borne him ill-will, they must have seen him, and it was not unlikely they might say that the owl knew all about it, and kept it from the king. On the other hand, he thought that Kapchack's rage would be terrible to face.

Upon the whole, however, the owl came to the conclusion that his safest, as well as his most honourable course, was to go straight to the king, late as it was, and communicate all that had thus come to his knowledge. He set out at once, and upon his way again passed the glade, taking care not to go too near the dead oak, nor to look towards the suspended hawk. He saw a night-jar like a ghost wheeling to and fro not far from the scaffold, and anxious to get from the ill-omened spot, flew yet more swiftly. Round the wood he went, and along the hedges, so occupied with his thoughts that he did not notice how the sky was covered with clouds, and once or twice narrowly escaping a branch blown off by the wind which had risen to a gale. Nor did he see the fox with his brush touching the ground, creeping unhappily along the mound, but never looked to the right nor left, hastening as fast as he could glide to King Kapchack.

Now the king had waited up that night as long as ever he could, wondering why the thrush did not return, and growing more and more anxious about the ambassador every moment. Yet he was unable to imagine what could delay him, nor could he see how any ill could befall him, protected as he was by the privileges of his office. As the night came on, and the ambassador did not come, Kapchack, worn out with anxieties, snapped at his attendants, who retired to a little distance, for they feared the monarch in these fits of temper.

Kapchack had just fallen asleep when the owl arrived, and the attendants objected to letting him see the king. But the owl insisted, saying that it was his particular privilege as chief secretary of state to be admitted to audience at any moment. With some difficulty, therefore, he at last got to the king, who woke up in a rage, and stormed at his faithful counsellor with such fury that the attendants again retired in affright. But the owl stood his ground and told his tale.

When King Kapchack heard that his ambassador had been foully assassinated, and that, therefore, the treaty was at an end—for Choo Hoo would never brook such an affront; when he heard that Ki Ki, his trusted Ki Ki, who had the command, had offered to retreat in the hour of battle, and expose him to be taken prisoner; when he heard that the weasel, the weasel whom that very afternoon he had restored to his highest favour, had revealed to the enemy the existence of the spring, he lost all his spirit, and he knew not what to do. He waved the owl from his presence, and sat alone hanging his head, utterly overcome.

The clouds grew darker, the wind howled, the trees creaked, and the branches cracked (the snail had foreseen the storm and had ventured forth on the wall), a few spots of rain came driving along. Kapchack heard nothing. He was deserted by all: all had turned traitors against him, every one. He who had himself deceived all was now deceived by all, and suffered the keenest pangs. Thus, in dolour and despair the darkness increased, and the tempest howled about him.



CHAPTER XI.

THE STORM IN THE NIGHT.

When the fox, after humbling himself in the dust, was rudely dismissed by King Kapchack, he was so mortified, that as he slunk away his brush touched the ground, and the tip of his nostrils turned almost white. That he, whose ancestors had once held regal dignity, should thus be contemned by one who in comparison was a mere upstart, and that, too, after doing him a service by means of the gnat, and after bowing himself, as it were, to the ground, hurt him to his soul. He went away through the fern and the bushes to his lair in the long grass which grew in a corner of the copse, and having curled himself up, tried to forget the insult in slumber.

But he could not shut his eyes, and after a while he went off again down the hedgerow to another place where he sometimes stayed, under thick brambles on a broad mound. But he could not rest there, nor in the osier bed, nor in the furze, but he kept moving from place to place all day, contrary to his custom, and not without running great danger. The sting lingered in him, and the more so because he felt that it was true—he knew himself that he had not shown any ability lately. Slowly the long day passed, the shadows lengthened and it became night. Still restlessly and aimlessly wandering he went about the fields noticing nothing, but miserable to the last degree. The owl flew by on his errand to King Kapchack; the bats fluttered overhead; the wind blew and the trees creaked; but the fox neither saw, nor heard, nor thought of anything except his own degradation. He had been cast forth as unworthy—even the very mouse had received some instructions, but he, the descendant of illustrious ancestors, was pointedly told that the wit for which they had been famous did not exist in him.

As the night drew on, the wind rose higher, the clouds became thicker and darker, the branches crashed to the earth, the tempest rushed along bearing everything before it. The owls, alarmed for their safety, hid in the hollow trees, or retired to their barns; the bats retreated into the crevices of the tiles; nothing was abroad but the wildfowl, whose cries occasionally resounded overhead. Now and then, the fall of some branch into a hawthorn bush frightened the sleeping thrushes and blackbirds, who flew forth into the darkness, not knowing whither they were going. The rabbits crouched on the sheltered side of the hedges, and then went back into their holes. The larks cowered closer to the earth.

Ruin and destruction raged around: in Choo Hoo's camp the ash poles beat against each other, oaks were rent, and his vast army knew no sleep that night. Whirled about by the fearful gusts, the dying hawk, suspended from the trap, no longer fluttered, but swung unconscious to and fro. The feathers of the murdered thrush were scattered afar, and the leaves torn from the boughs went sweeping after them. Alone in the scene the fox raced along, something of the wildness of the night entered into him; he tried, by putting forth his utmost speed, to throw off the sense of ignominy.

In the darkness, and in his distress of mind, he neither knew or cared whither he was going. He passed the shore of the Long Pond, and heard the waves dashing on the stones, and felt the spray driven far up on the sward. He passed the miserable hawk. He ran like the wind by the camp of Choo Hoo, and heard the hum of the army, unable to sleep. Weary at last, he sought for some spot into which to drag his limbs, and crept along a mound which, although he did not recognise it in his stupefied state of mind, was really not far from where he had started. As he was creeping along, he fancied he heard a voice which came from the ground beneath his feet; it sounded so strange in the darkness that he started and stayed to listen.

He heard it again, but though he thought he knew the voices of all the residents in the field, he could not tell who it was, nor whence it came. But after a time he found that it proceeded from the lower part or butt of an elm-tree. This tree was very large, and seemed perfectly sound, but it seems there was a crack in it, whether caused by lightning or not he did not know, which did not show at ordinary times. But when the wind blew extremely strong as it did to-night, the tree leant over before the blast, and thus opened the crack. The fox, listening at the crack, heard the voice lamenting the long years that had passed, the darkness and the dreary time, and imploring every species of vengeance upon the head of the cruel King Kapchack.

After a while the fox came to the conclusion that this must be the toad who, very many years ago, for some offence committed against the state, was imprisoned by Kapchack's orders in the butt of an elm, there to remain till the end of the world. Curious to know why the toad had been punished in this terrible manner, the fox resolved to speak to the prisoner, from whom perhaps he might learn something to Kapchack's disadvantage. Waiting, therefore, till the crack opened as the gust came, the fox spoke into it, and the toad, only too delighted to get some one to talk to at last, replied directly.

But the chink was so small that his voice was scarcely audible; the chink, too, only opened for a second or two during the savage puffs of the gale, and then closed again, so that connected conversation was not possible, and all the fox heard was that the toad had some very important things to say. Anxious to learn these things, the fox tried his hardest to discover some way of communicating with the toad, and at last he hit upon a plan. He looked round till he found a little bit of flint, which he picked up, and when the elm bent over before the gale, and the chink opened, he pushed the splinter of flint into the crevice.

Then he found another piece of flint just a trifle larger, and, watching his opportunity, thrust it in. This he did three or four times, each time putting in a larger wedge, till there was a crack sufficiently open to allow him to talk to the toad easily. The toad said that this was the first time he had spoken to anybody since his grandson, who lived in the rhubarb patch, came to exchange a word with him before the butt of the tree grew quite round him.

But though the fox plied him with questions, and persuaded him in every way, he would not reveal the reason why he was imprisoned, except that he had unluckily seen Kapchack do something. He dared not say what it was, because if he did he had no doubt he would be immediately put to death, and although life in the tree was no more than a living death, still it was life, and he had this consolation, that through being debarred from all exercise and work, and compelled to exist without eating or drinking, notwithstanding the time passed and the years went by, still he did not grow any older. He was as young now as when he was first put into the dungeon, and if he could once get out, he felt that he should soon recover the use of his limbs, and should crawl about and enjoy himself when his grandson who lived in the rhubarb patch, and who was already very old and warty, was dead.

Indeed by being thus shut up he should survive every other toad, and he hoped some day to get out, because although he had been condemned to imprisonment till the end of the world, that was only Kapchack's vainglorious way of pronouncing sentence, as if his (Kapchack's) authority was going to endure for ever, which was quite contrary to history and the teachings of philosophy. So far from that he did not believe himself that Kapchack's dynasty was fated to endure very long, for since he had been a prisoner immured in the earth, he had heard many strange things whispered along underground, and among them a saying about Kapchack. Besides which he knew that the elm-tree could not exist for ever; already there was a crack in it, which in time would split farther up; the elm had reached its prime, and was beginning to decay within. By-and-by it would be blown over, and then the farmer would have the butt grubbed up, and split for firewood, and he should escape. It was true it might be many years hence, perhaps a century, but that did not matter in the least—time was nothing to him now—and he knew he should emerge as young as when he went in.

This was the reason why he so carefully kept the secret of what he had seen, so as to preserve his life; nor could the fox by any persuasion prevail upon him to disclose the matter.

"But at least," said the fox, "at least tell me the saying you have heard underground about King Kapchack."

"I am afraid to do so," said the toad; "for having already suffered so much I dread the infliction of further misery."

"If you will tell me," said the fox, "I will do my very best to get you out. I will keep putting in wedges till the tree splits wide open, so that you may crawl up the chink."

"Will you," said the toad, excited at the hope of liberty, "will you really do that?"

"Yes, that I will," said the fox; "wait an instant, and I will fetch another flint."

So he brought another flint which split the tree so much that the toad felt the fresh air come down to him. "And you really will do it?" he said.

"Yes," repeated the fox, "I will certainly let you out."

"Then," said the toad, "the saying I have heard underground is this: 'When the hare hunts the hunter in the dead day, the hours of King Kapchack are numbered'. It is a curious and a difficult saying, for I cannot myself understand how the day could be dead, nor how the hare could chase the sportsman; but you, who have so high a reputation for sagacity, can no doubt in time interpret it. Now put in some more wedges and help me out."

But the fox, having learnt all that the toad could tell him, went away, and finding the osiers, curled himself up to sleep.

The same night, the weasel, having had a very pleasant nap upon his divan in the elm in the squirrel's copse, woke up soon after midnight, and started for the farm, in order to enjoy the pleasure of seeing the rat in the gin, which he had instructed Bevis how to set up. Had it not been for this he would not have faced so terrible a tempest, but to see the rat in torture he would have gone through anything. As he crept along a furrow, not far outside the copse, choosing that route that he might be somewhat sheltered in the hollow from the wind, he saw a wire which a poacher had set up, and stayed to consider how he could turn it to his advantage.

"There is Ulu, the hare," he said to himself, "who lives in the wheat-field; I had her son, he was very sweet and tender, and also her nephew, who was not so juicy, and I have noticed that she has got very plump of late. She is up on the hill to-night I have no doubt, notwithstanding the tempest, dancing and flirting with her disreputable companions, for vice has such an attraction for some minds that they cannot forego its pleasures, even at the utmost personal inconvenience. Such revels, at such a time of tempest, while the wrath of heaven is wreaked upon the trees, are nothing short of sacrilege, and I for one have always set my mind against irreverence. I shall do the world a service if I rid it of such an abandoned creature." So he called to a moor-hen, who was flying over from the Long Pond at a tremendous pace, being carried before the wind, and the moor-hen, not without a great deal of trouble, managed to wheel round (she was never very clever with her wings) to receive his commands, for she did not dare to pass over or slight so high a personage.

"Moor-hen," said the weasel, "do you go direct to the hills and find Ulu, the hare, and tell her that little Sir Bevis, of whom she is so fond, is lost in the copse, and that he is crying bitterly because of the darkness and the wind, and what will become of him I do not know. I have done my very best to show him the way home, but he cherishes an unfortunate prejudice against me, and will not listen to what I say. Therefore if the hare does not come immediately and show him the way I greatly fear that he will be knocked down by the branches, or cry his dear pretty darling heart out; and tell her that he is at this minute close to the birches. Go quickly, Moor-hen."

"I will, my lord," said the moor-hen, and away she flew.

Then the weasel proceeded on his way, and shortly afterwards arrived at the farm. As he came quietly down from the rick-yard, he said to himself: "I will keep a good way from the wall, as it is so dark, and I do not know the exact place where Bevis has put the trap. Besides, it is just possible that the rat may not yet have passed that way, for he does most of his business in the early morning, and it is not yet dawn."

So he crossed over to the wood-pile and listened carefully, but could hear no groans, as he had expected; but, on consideration, he put this down to the wind, which he observed blew the sound away from him. He then slipped over to the grass by the cart-house wall, intending to listen at the mouth of the drain to hear if the rat was within, and then if that was not the case, to go on along towards the wall of the pig-sty, for he began to think the rat must have been stunned by the trap, and so could not squeak.

If that was the case, he thought he would just bite off the end of the rat's tail, in revenge for the terrible meal he had once been obliged to make upon his own, and also to wake up the rat to the misery of his position. But just as he approached the mouth of the drain, sniffing and listening with the utmost caution, it happened that a drop of rain fell through a chink in the top of Pan's tub, and woke him from his slumber. Pan shook himself and turned round, and the weasel, hearing the disturbance, dreaded lest Pan was loose, and had caught scent of him. He darted forwards to get into the drain, when the trap, which the bailiff had so carefully removed from where Bevis had set it, snapped him up in a second. The shock and the pain made him faint; he turned over and lay still.

About the same time the moor-hen, borne swiftly along by the wind on her way to the river, reached the hills, and seeing the hare, flew low down and delivered the weasel's message as well as she could. The hare was dreadfully alarmed about Sir Bevis, and anxious to relieve him from his fright in the dark copse, raced down the hill, and over the fields as fast as she could go, making towards that part of the copse where the birches stood, as the weasel had directed, knowing that in running there she would find her neck in a noose.

It happened just as he had foreseen. She came along as fast as the wind, and could already see the copse like a thicker darkness before her, when the loop of the wire drew up around her neck, and over she rolled in the furrow.

Now the weasel had hoped that the wire would not hang her at once. He intended to have come back from the farm, and from taunting the rat in the trap, in time to put his teeth into her veins, before, in her convulsive efforts to get free, she tightened the noose and died.

And this, too, happened exactly as the weasel had intended, but in a different manner, and with a different result; for it had chanced that the wind, in the course of its ravages among the trees, snapped off a twig of ash, which rolling over and over before the blast along the sward, came against the stick which upheld the wire, and the end of the twig where it had broken from the tree lodged in the loop. Thus, when Ulu kicked, and struggled, and screamed, in her fear, the noose indeed drew up tight and half-strangled her, but not quite, because the little piece of wood prevented it. But, exhausted with pain and terror, and partially choked, the poor hare at last could do nothing else but crouch down in the furrow, where the rain fell on and soaked her warm coat of fur. For as the dawn came on the wind sank, and the rain fell.

In this unhappy plight she passed the rest of the night, dreading every moment lest the fox should come along (as she could not run away), and not less afraid of the daybreak, when some one would certainly find her.

After many weary hours, the bailiff coming to his work in the morning with a sack over his shoulders to keep out the rain, saw something on the grass, and pounced upon the wretched hare. Already his great thumb was against the back of her neck—already she was thrown across his knee—already she felt her sinews stretch, as he proceeded to break her neck, regardless of her shrieks—when suddenly it occurred to him how delighted Bevis would be with a living hare. For the bailiff was very fond of Bevis, and would have done anything to please him. So he took the hare in his arms, and carried her down to the farm.

When Bevis got up and came to breakfast, the bailiff came in and brought him the hare, expecting that he would be highly pleased. But Bevis in an instant recognised his friend who had shown him his way in the cowslips, and flew into a rage, and beat the bailiff with his fist for his cruelty. Nothing would satisfy him but he must let the hare go free before he touched his breakfast. He would not sit down, he stamped and made such a to-do that at last they let him have his own way.

He would not even allow the bailiff to carry the hare for him; he took her in his arms and went with her up the footpath into the field. He would not even permit them to follow him. Now, the hare knew him very well but could not speak when any one else was near, for it is very well known to be a law among hares and birds, and such creatures, that they can only talk to one human being, and are dumb when more than one are present. But when Bevis had taken her out into the footpath, and set her down, and stroked her back, and her long ears, black at the tip, and had told her to go straight up the footpath, and not through the long grass, because it was wet with the rain, the hare told him how she came in the wire through the wicked weasel telling her that he was lost in the copse.

"I was not lost," said Bevis; "I went to bed, and saw the owl go by. The weasel told another of his stories—now, I remember, he told me to set the trap for the rat."

"Did he?" said the hare; "then you may depend it is some more of his dreadful wickedness; there will be no peace in the world while he is allowed to go roaming about."

"No," said Bevis, "that there will not: but as sure as my papa's gun, which is the best gun in the country, as sure as my papa's gun I will kill him the next time I see him. I will not listen to the squirrel, I will cut the weasel's tree down, and chop off his head."

"I hope you will, dear," said the hare. "But now I must be gone, for I can hear Pan barking, and no doubt he can smell me; besides which, it is broad daylight, and I must go and hide; good-bye, my dear Sir Bevis." And away went the hare up the footpath till Bevis lost sight of her through the gateway.

Then he went to his breakfast, and directly afterwards, putting on his greatcoat, for it still rained a little, he went up to the wall by the pig-sty expecting to find the rat in the trap. But the trap was gone.

"There now," said he, falling into another rage, twice already that morning; "I do believe that stupid bailiff has moved it," and so the bailiff trying to please him fell twice into disgrace in an hour.

Looking about to see where the bailiff had put the trap, he remembered what the weasel had told him, and going to the cart-house wall by the drain, found the trap and the weasel in it: "Oh! you false and treacherous creature!" said Bevis, picking up a stone, "now I will smash you into seventy thousand little pieces," and he flung the stone with all his might, but being in too much of a hurry (as the snail had warned him) it missed the mark, and only knocked a bit of mortar out of the wall. He looked round for a bigger one, so that he might crush the wretch this time, when the weasel feebly lifted his head, and said: "Bevis! Bevis! It is not generous of you to bear such malice towards me now I am dying; you should rather——"

"Hold your tongue, horrid thing," said Bevis; "I will not listen to anything you have to say. Here is a brick, this will do, first-rate, to pound you with, and now I think of it, I will come a little nearer so as to make quite sure."

"Oh, Bevis!" said the weasel with a gasp, "I shall be dead in a minute," and Bevis saw his head fall back.

"Tell the hare I repented," said the weasel. "I have been very wicked, Bevis—oh!—but I shall never, never do it any more—oh!——"

"Are you dead?" said Bevis. "Are you quite dead?" putting down the brick, for he could not bear to see anything in such distress, and his rage was over in a minute.

"I am," said the weasel, "at least I shall be in half-a-minute, for I must be particular to tell the exact truth in this extremity. Oh! there is one thing I should like to say——"

"What is it?" said Bevis.

"But if you smash me I can't," said the weasel; "and what is the use of smashing me, for all my bones are broken?"

"I will not smash you," said Bevis, "I will only have you nailed up to the stable door so that everybody may see what a wretch you were."

"Thank you," said the weasel, very gratefully, "will you please tell the hare and all of them that if I could only live I would do everything I could to make up to them, for all the wickedness I have committed—oh!—I have not got time to say all I would. Oh! Bevis, Bevis!"

"Yes, poor thing," said Bevis, now quite melted and sorry for the wretched criminal, whose life was ebbing so fast, "what is it you want? I will be sure to do it."

"Then, dear Sir Bevis—how kind it is of you to forgive me, dear Sir Bevis; when I am dead do not nail me to the door—only think how terrible that would be—bury me, dear."

"So I will," said Bevis; "but perhaps you needn't die. Stay a little while, and let us see if you cannot live."

"Oh, no," said the weasel, "my time is come. But when I am dead, dear, please take me out of this cruel trap in which I am so justly caught, as I set it for another; take me out of this cruel trap which has broken my ribs, and lay me flat on the grass, and pull my limbs out straight, so that I may not stiffen all in a heap and crooked. Then get your spade, my dear Sir Bevis, and dig a hole and bury me, and put a stone on top of me, so that Pan cannot scratch me up—oh! oh!—will you—oh!"

"Yes, indeed I will. I will dig the hole—I have a capital spade," said Bevis; "stay a minute."

But the weasel gave three gasps and fell back quite dead. Bevis looked at him a little while, and then put his foot on the spring and pressed it down and took the weasel out. He stroked down his fur where the trap had ruffled it, and rubbed the earth from his poor paws with which he had struggled to get free, and then having chosen a spot close by the wood-pile, where the ground was soft, to dig the hole, he put the weasel down there, and pulled his limbs out straight, and so disposed him for the last sad ceremony. He then ran to the summer-house, which was not far, and having found the spade came back with it to the wood-pile. But the weasel was gone.

There was the trap; there was the place he had chosen—all the little twigs and leaves brushed away ready for digging—but no weasel. He was bewildered, when a robin perched on the top of the wood-pile put his head on one side, and said so softly and sadly: "Bevis, Bevis, little Sir Bevis, what have you done?" For the weasel was not dead, and was not even very seriously injured; the trap was old, and the spring not very strong, and the teeth did not quite meet. If the rat, who was fat, had got in, it would have pinched him dreadfully, but the weasel was extremely thin, and so he escaped with a broken rib—the only true thing he had said.

So soon as ever Sir Bevis's back was turned, the weasel crawled under the wood-pile, just as he had done once before, and from there made his way as quickly as he could up the field sheltered by the aftermath, which had now grown long again. When Bevis understood that the weasel had only shammed dying, and had really got away, he burst into tears, for he could not bear to be cheated, and then threw his spade at the robin.



CHAPTER XII.

THE OLD OAK.—THE KING'S DESPAIR.

The very same morning, after the rain had ceased, the keeper who looked after the great woods at the other end of the Long Pond set out with his gun and his dogs to walk round the preserves. Now the dogs he took with him were the very best dogs he had, for that night a young gentleman, who had just succeeded to the estate, was coming down from London, and on the following morning would be sure to go out shooting. This young gentleman had unexpectedly come into the property through the death of the owner, who was shot in his bedroom by a burglar. The robber had once been his groom, and the squirrel told Bevis how it all happened through a flint falling out of the hole in the bottom of the waggon which belonged to the old farmer in whose orchard Kapchack had his palace.

The heir had been kept at a distance during the old gentleman's lifetime, for the old gentleman always meant to marry and have a son, but did not do so, and also always meant to make a will and leave the best part of his estate to somebody else, but he did not do so, and as the old toad in the rhubarb patch told Bevis afterwards when he heard the story, if you are only going to do a thing, it would be no use if you lived a thousand years, it would always be just the same. So the young fellow, who had been poor all his life, when he thus suddenly jumped into such a property, was not a little elated, and wrote to the keeper that he should come down and have some shooting.

The keeper was rather alarmed at this, for the former owner was not a sporting man, and did not look strictly after such things, so that the game had been neglected and had got scarce; and what was worse, the dogs were out of training. He therefore got up early that morning, intending to go his rounds quickly, and then take the dogs out into the stubble, and try and thrash them into some use. Presently, as he walked along, he came to the glade in the woods, and saw the dead hawk hanging from the trap up in the old oak-tree. Pleased to find that his trap, so cunningly placed, had not been prepared in vain, he went up to the oak, leaned his gun against the trunk, ordered the dogs to lie down (which they did with some reluctance), and then climbed up into the tree to re-set the gin.

He took the hawk from the trap (his feathers were all draggled and wet from the rain), and threw the dead bird down; and, whether it was that the act of throwing it caused an extra strain upon the bough, or whether the storm had cracked it in the night, or whether it had rotted away more than appeared on the surface, or whether it was all of these things together, certain it is the bough broke, and down came the keeper thud on the sward. The bough fell down with him, and as it fell it struck the gun, and the gun exploded, and although the dogs scampered aside when they heard the crack, they did not scamper so quick but one of them was shot dead, and the other two were mortally wounded.

For a while the keeper lay there stunned, with the wet grass against his face. But by-and-by, coming to himself, he sat up with difficulty, and called for assistance, for he could not move, having sprained one ankle, and broken the small bone of the other leg. There he sat and shouted, but no one came for some time, till presently a slouching labourer (it was the very same who put up the wire by the copse in which the hare was caught) chanced to pass by outside the wood. The keeper saw him, but hoarse with shouting, and feeling faint too (for a sprained ankle is extremely painful), he could not make him hear. But he bethought him of his gun, and dragging it to him, hastily put in a cartridge and fired.

The report drew the labourer's attention, and peering into the wood, he saw some one on the ground waving a white handkerchief. After looking a long time, he made up his mind to go and see what it was; but then he recollected that if he put his foot inside the wood he should be trespassing, and as he had got a wire in his pocket that would be a serious matter. So he altered his mind, and went on.

Very likely the keeper was angry, but there was no one to hear what he said except the dead hawk. He would have fired off fifty cartridges if he had had them, but as he did not like a weight to carry he had only two or three, and these did not attract attention. As for the labourer, about midday, when he sat down to lunch in the cart-house at the farm where he worked with the other men, he did just mention that he thought he had seen something white waving in the wood, and they said it was odd, but very likely nothing to speak of.

One of the wounded dogs ran home, bleeding all the way, and there crept into his kennel and died; the other could not get so far, but dropped in a hedge. The keeper's wife wondered why he did not come home to dinner, but supposed, with a sigh, that he had looked in at an alehouse, and went on with her work.

The keeper shouted again when his throat got less hoarse, but all the answer he obtained was the echo from the wood. He tried to crawl, but the pain was so exquisite he got but a very little way, and there he had to lie. The sun rose higher and shone out as the clouds rolled away, and the rain-drops on the grass glistened bright till presently they dried up.

With the gleaming of the sun there was motion in the woods: blackbirds came forth and crossed the glades; thrushes flew past; a jay fluttered round the tops of the firs; after a while a pheasant came along the verge of the underwood, now stepping out into the grass, and now back again into the bushes. There was a pleasant cawing of rooks, and several small parties of wood-pigeons (doubtless from Choo Hoo's camp) went over. Two or three rabbits hopped out and fed; humble-bees went buzzing by; a green woodpecker flashed across the glade and disappeared among the trees as if an arrow had been shot into the woods.

The slow hours went on, and as the sun grew hotter the keeper, unable to move, began to suffer from the fierceness of the rays, for anything still finds out the heat more than that which is in movement. First he lifted his hat from time to time above his head, but it was not much relief, as the wind had fallen. Next he tried placing his handkerchief inside his hat. At last he took off his coat, stuck the barrels of his gun into the ground (soft from the rain), and hung the coat upon it. This gave him a little shadow. The dead oak-tree having no leaves cast but a narrow shade, and that fell on the opposite side to where he was.

In the afternoon, when the heat was very great and all the other birds appeared to have gone, a crow came (one of Kauc's retainers) and perched low down on an ash-tree not more than fifty yards away. Perhaps it was the dead dog; perhaps it was the knowledge that the man was helpless, that brought him. There he perched, and the keeper reviled him, wishing that he had but saved one of his cartridges, and forgetting that even then the barrels of his gun were too full of earth. After a while the crow flew idly across to the other side of the glade, and went out of sight; but it was only for a short time, and presently he came back again. This the crow did several times, always returning to the ash.

The keeper ran over in his mind the people who would probably miss him, and cause a search to be made. First there was his wife; but once, when he had been a long time from home, and she in a great alarm had sought for him, she found him drunk at the alehouse, and he beat her for her trouble. It was not likely that she would come. The lad who acted as his assistant (he had but one, for, as previously stated, the former owner did not shoot) was not likely to look for him either, for not long since, bringing a message to his superior, he discovered him selling some game, and was knocked down for his pains. As for his companions at the alehouse, they would be all out in the fields, and would not assemble till night: several of them he knew were poachers, and though glad enough to share his beer would not have looked towards him if in distress.

The slow hours wore on, and the sun declining a little, the shadow of the dead oak moved round, and together with his coat sheltered him fairly well. Weary with the unwonted labour of thinking, the tension of his mind began to yield, and by-and-by he dropped asleep, lying at full length upon his back. The crow returned once more to the ash, and looked at the sleeping man and the dead dog, cleaned his beak against the bough, and uttered a low croak. Once he flew a little way out towards them, but there was the gun: it was true he knew very well there was no powder (for, in the first place, he could not smell any, and, secondly, if there had been any he knew he should have had the shot singing about his ears long before this; you see, he could put two and two together), still there was the gun. The dog does not like the corner where the walking-stick stands. The crow did not like the gun, though it was stuck in the ground: he went back to the ash, cleaned his bill, and waited.

Something came stealthily through the grass, now stopping, now advancing with a creeping, evil motion. It was the weasel. When he stole away from the wood-pile, after escaping from the trap, he made up the field towards the copse, but upon reflection he determined to abandon his lair in the hollow elm, for he had so abused Bevis's good-nature that he doubted whether Bevis might not attack him even there despite the squirrel. He did not know exactly where to go, knowing that every creature was in secret his enemy, and in his wounded state, unable to move quickly or properly defend himself, he dreaded to trust himself near them. After a while he remembered the old dead oak, which was also hollow within, and which was so far from the copse it was not probable Bevis would find it.

Thither he bent his painful steps, for his broken rib hurt him very much, and after many pauses to rest, presently, in the afternoon, he came near. Lifting his head above the grass he saw the dead dog, and the sleeping keeper; he watched them a long time, and seeing that neither of them moved he advanced closer. As he approached he saw the dead hawk, and recognised one of Ki Ki's retainers; then coming to the dog, the blood from the shot wounds excited his terrible thirst. But it had ceased to flow; he sniffed at it and then went towards the man.

The crow, envious, but afraid to join the venture, watched him from the ash. Every few inches the weasel stayed, lifted his head; looked, and listened. Then he advanced again, paused, and again approached. In five minutes he had reached the keeper's feet; two minutes more and he was by his waist. He listened again; he sniffed, he knew it was dangerous, but he could not check the resistless prompting of his appetite.

He crept up on the keeper's chest; the crow fidgeted on the ash. He crept up to the necktie; the crow came down on a lower bough. He moved yet another inch to the collar; the crow flew out ten yards and settled on the ground. The collar was stiff, and partly covered that part of the neck which fascinated the weasel's gaze. He put his foot softly on the collar; the crow hopped thrice towards them. He brought up his other foot, he sniffed—the breath came warm from the man's half-open lips—he adventured the risk, and placed his paw on the keeper's neck.

Instantly—as if he had received an electric shock—the keeper started to his knees, shuddering; the weasel dropped from his neck upon the ground, the crow hastened back to the ash. With a blow of his open hand the keeper knocked the weasel yards away; then, in his rage and fear, with whitened face, he wished instead he had beaten the creature down upon the earth, for the weasel, despite the grinding of his broken rib, began to crawl off, and he could not reach him.

He looked round for a stick or stone, there was none; he put his hand in his pocket, but his knife had slipped out when he fell from the tree. He passed his hands over his waistcoat seeking for something, felt his watch—a heavy silver one—and in his fury snatched it from the swivel, and hurled it at the weasel. The watch thrown with such force missed the weasel, struck the sward, and bounded up against the oak: the glass shivered and flew sparkling a second in the sunshine; the watch glanced aside, and dropped in the grass. When he looked again the weasel had gone. It was an hour before the keeper recovered himself—the shuddering terror with which he woke up haunted him in the broad daylight.

An intolerable thirst now tormented him, but the furrow was dry. In the morning, he remembered it had contained a little water from the rain, which during the day had sunk into the earth. He picked a bennet from the grass and bit it, but it was sapless, dried by the summer heat. He looked for a leaf of sorrel, but there was none. The slow hours wore on; the sun sank below the wood, and the long shadows stretched out. By-and-by the grass became cooler to the touch; dew was forming upon it. Overhead the rooks streamed homewards to their roosting trees. They cawed incessantly as they flew; they were talking about Kapchack and Choo Hoo, but he did not understand them.

The shadows reached across the glade, and yonder the rabbits appeared again from among the bushes where their burrows were. He began now to seriously think that he should have to pass the night there. His ankle was swollen, and the pain almost beyond endurance. The slightest attempt at motion caused intense agony. His one hope now was that the same slouching labourer who had passed in the morning would go back that way at night; but as the shadows deepened that hope departed, and he doubted too whether any one could see him through the underwood in the dark. The slouching labourer purposely avoided that route home. He did not want to see anything, if anything there was.

He went round by the high road, and having had his supper, and given his wife a clout in the head, he sauntered down to the alehouse. After he had taken three quarts of beer, he mentioned the curious incident of the white handkerchief in the woods to his mates, who congratulated him on his sense in refraining from going near it, as most likely it was one of that keeper's tricks, just to get somebody into the wood. More talk, and more beer. By-and-by the keeper's wife began to feel alarmed. She had already found the dead dog in the kennel; but that did not surprise her in the least, knowing her husband's temper, and that if a dog disobeyed it was not at all unusual for a cartridge to go whistling after him.

But when the evening came, and the darkness fell; when she had gone down to the alehouse, braving his wrath, and found that he was not there, the woman began to get hysterical. The lad who acted as assistant had gone home, so she went out into the nearest stubble herself, thinking that her husband must have finished his round before lunch, and was somewhere in the newly-reaped fields. But after walking about the rustling stubble till she was weary, she came back to the alehouse, and begged the men to tell her if they had seen anything of him. Then they told her about the white handkerchief which the slouching poacher had seen in the wood that morning. She turned on him like a tiger, and fiercely upbraided him; then rushed from the house. The sloucher took up his quart, and said that he saw "no call" to hurry.

But some of the men went after the wife. The keeper was found, and brought home on a cart, but not before he had seen the owl go by, and the dark speck of the bat passing to and fro overhead.

All that day Bevis did not go to the copse, being much upset with the cheat the weasel had played him, and also because they said the grass and the hedges would be so wet after the storm. Nor did anything take place in the copse, for King Kapchack moped in his fortress, the orchard, the whole day long, so greatly was he depressed by the widespread treason of which the owl had informed him.

Choo Hoo, thinking that the treaty was concluded, relaxed the strictness of discipline, and permitted his army to spread abroad from the camp and forage for themselves. He expected the return of the ambassador with further communications, and ordered search to be made for every dainty for his entertainment; while the thrush, for whom this care was taken, had not only ceased to exist, but it would have been impossible to collect his feathers, blown away to every quarter.

The vast horde of barbarians were the more pleased with the liberty accorded to them, because they had spent so ill a night while the gale raged through their camp. So soon as the sun began to gleam through the retreating clouds, they went forth in small parties, many of which the keeper saw go over him while lying helpless by the dead oak-tree.

King Kapchack, after the owl had informed him of the bewildering maze of treason with which he was surrounded, moped, as has been said before, upon his perch. In the morning, wet and draggled from the storm, his feathers out of place, and without the spirit to arrange them, he seemed to have grown twenty years older in one night, so pitiable did he appear. Nor did the glowing sun, which filled all other hearts with joy, reach his gloomy soul. He saw no resource; no enterprise suggested itself to him; all was dark at noonday.

An ominous accident which had befallen the aged apple-tree in which his palace stood contributed to this depression of mind. The gale had cracked a very large bough, which, having shown signs of weakness, had for many years been supported by a prop carefully put up by the farmer. But whether the prop in course of time had decayed at the line where the air and earth exercise their corroding influence upon wood; or whether the bough had stiffened with age, and could not swing easily to the wind; or whether, as seems most likely, the event occurred at that juncture in order to indicate the course of fate, it is certain that the huge bough was torn partly away from the trunk, leaving a gaping cavity.

Kapchack viewed the injury to the tree, which had so long sustained his family and fortune, with the utmost concern; it seemed an omen of approaching destruction so plain and unmistakable that he could not look at it; he turned his mournful gaze in the opposite direction. The day passed slowly, as slowly as it did to the keeper lying beneath the oak, and the king, though he would have resented intrusion with the sharpest language, noticed with an increasing sense of wrong that the court was deserted, and with one exception none called to pay their respects.

The exception was Eric, the favourite missel-thrush, who alone of all the birds was allowed to frequent the same orchard. The missel-thrush, loyal to the last, came, but seeing Kapchack's condition, did not endeavour to enter into conversation. As for the rest, they did not venture from fear of the king's violent temper, and because their unquiet consciences made them suspect that this unusual depression was caused by the discovery of their treachery. They remained away from dread of his anger. Kapchack, on the other hand, put their absence down to the mean and contemptible desire to avoid a falling house. He observed that even the little Te-te, the tomtit, and chief of the secret police, who invariably came twice or thrice a day with an account of some gossip he had overheard, did not arrive. How low he must have fallen, since the common informers disdained to associate with him!

Towards the evening he sent for his son, Prince Tchack-tchack, with the intention of abdicating in his favour, but what were his feelings when the messenger returned without him! Tchack-tchack refused to come. He, too, had turned away. Thus, deserted by the lovely La Schach, for whom he had risked his throne; deserted by the whole court and even by his own son; the monarch welcomed the darkness of the night, the second of his misery, which hid his disgrace from the world.

The owl came, faithful by night as the missel-thrush by day, but Kapchack, in the deepest despondency, could not reply to his remarks. Twice the owl came back, hoping to find his master somewhat more open to consolation, and twice had to depart unsuccessful. At last, about midnight, the king, worn out with grief, fell asleep.