Tales from Watership Down Read Free

all round him, and he felt himself choking in their hot breath. At length the same one said, “It is true that for many years we were the guardians of the Sense of Smell. But we had no use for it, because no other creatures seemed to lack it. It became a burden to us, and at last we gave it away.”
    “To whom?” asked El-ahrairah tremblingly.
    “Why, to the King of Yesterday, of course. We couldn’t give it to anyone else, could we?”
    El-ahrairah felt bitterly mortified. To have accomplished such a journey, and to have been spared by the terrible Ilips, only to learn that they no longer possessed what he was seeking, was grievous indeed. But still he did his best to pull himself together.
    “Sir,” he said, “where is that King and which way shall I go to find him?”
    He heard them conversing together, and at length thefirst Ilip said, “It would be too far for you to walk. You would lose your way. You would starve and die. You may come with me. I will take you on my back.”
    Full of gratitude, El-ahrairah prostrated himself before the Ilips and thanked them again and again. Finally one of them said, “Here you go, then,” took him between its teeth and put him down on the first Ilip’s back. It was roughly furred, and he had no difficulty in holding on.
    They set out, going what seemed very fast. As they went, El-ahrairah explained to the Ilip that his friend the glanbrin was waiting for him at the place of stones, and asked whether they could go by that way.
    “We can stop there, certainly,” replied the Ilip. “It’s on our way. But directly your friend smells me, he’ll run.”
    “If you could put me down, sir, a little way off,” said El-ahrairah, “I’ll find him and explain. Then you could come up to us and take us both.”
    To this the Ilip agreed. El-ahrairah found the glanbrin, who at first was terrified at the very thought of riding on an Ilip’s back. At length, however, El-ahrairah persuaded him, and the Ilip set out again, carrying them both.
    Traveling at the Ilip’s speed, it seemed no distance at all to the place where El-ahrairah had first met the glanbrin. When they got there, he told the Ilip the story of his friend’s loss of his beautiful doe.
    “Is it far to the burrow you left?” asked the Ilip.
    “Oh, no, sir,” replied the glanbrin. “It’s quite close by.”
    Guided by the glanbrin, the Ilip took them there.When Shindyke, the great buck who had taken Flairgold for himself, smelled the Ilip outside the burrow, he came out and ran away as fast as he could go. The glanbrin explained everything to Flairgold, who was delighted to take him back as her mate. She said she had hated Shindyke but had been given no choice.
    The glanbrin and El-ahrairah said goodbye to each other with much sincerity and mutual gratitude, and the Ilip set out once more with El-ahrairah to the court of the King of Yesterday.
    Soon they were in twilight, and never had El-ahrairah been more glad to see it. The Ilip put him down on the edge of the forest.
    “The King’s court’s over there,” he said. “I’ll leave you now. I’m glad to have been able to help a friend of Lord Frith.”
    With this the Ilip disappeared into the forest, and El-ahrairah set off toward the court.
    As he came out from among the trees, he found himself crossing a rough field, full of weeds. Upon the further side was a straggling hawthorn hedge and an old, half-broken gate. El-ahrairah, slipping through the gate, was confronted by a creature about the same size as himself, with long ears like his own but having a long tail. He greeted him politely and asked where he could find the King of Yesterday.
    “I can take you to him,” said the creature. “Are you by any chance an English rabbit? Yes? Well, I always thought it was bound to come.”
    “And you?” asked El-ahrairah.
    “I am a potoroo. We’ll go this way, down toward the river. The King will probably be in the big courtyard.”
    They went down the field