the stick he held, which had a twisted iron end.

"No," she said, "catch it alive; I want a hare to be a friend to my
rabbit, which has lost all its little ones."

"Lost them? Eaten them, you mean, because you would always go and stare
at it," said Tom. "Where's the leveret? Oh! I see. Now, look out!"

A moment later and I was in darkness. Tom had thrown himself upon the
top of me and was grabbing at me with his hands. I nearly got away, but
as my head poked up under his arm the girl caught hold of it.

"Oh! it's scratching," she cried, as indeed I was with all my might.
"Hold it, Tom, hold it!"

"Hold it yourself," said Tom, "my face is full of furze prickles." So
she held and presently he helped her, till in the end I was tied up in a
pocket-handkerchief and carried I knew not whither. Indeed I was almost
mad with fear.

When I came to myself I found that I was within a kind of wire run which
smelt foully, as though hundreds of things had lived in it for years.
There was a hutch at the end of the run in which sat an enormous
she-rabbit, quite as big as my mother, a fierce-looking brute with long
yellow teeth. I was afraid of that rabbit and got as far from it as I
could. Presently it hopped out and looked at me.

"What are you doing here?" it asked. "Can't you talk? Well, it doesn't
matter. If I get hungry I'll eat you! Do you hear that? I'll eat you,
as I did all the others," and it showed its big yellow teeth and hopped