e to suffer what you had made them suffer. I often think
that because of what we have done before we men are also really being
hunted by something we cannot see."

"Ah!" exclaimed the Hare, "I never thought of that. I hope it is true,
for it makes things seem juster and less wicked. But I say, friend
Mahatma, what am I doing here now, where you tell me poor creatures with
four feet never, or hardly ever come?"

"I don't know, Hare. I am not wise, to whom it is only granted to visit
the Road occasionally to search for some one."

"I understand, Mahatma, but still you must know a great deal or you
would not be allowed in such a place before your time, or at any rate
you must be able to guess a great deal. So tell me, why do you think
that I am here?"

"I can't say, Hare, I can't indeed. Perhaps after the Gates are open and
your Guardian has given you to drink of the Cup, you will go to sleep
and wake up again as something else."

"To drink of the cup, Mahatma? I don't drink; at least I didn't, though
I can't tell what may happen here. But what do you mean about waking up
as something else? Please be more plain. As what else?"

"Oh! who can know? Possibly as you are on the human Road you might even
become a man some day, though I should not advise you to build on such a
hope as that."

"What do you say, Mahatma? A man! One of those two-legged beasts that
hunt hares; a thing like Giles and Tom--yes, Tom? Oh! not that--not
that! I'd almost rather go through everything again than become a cruel,
torturing man."

As it spoke thus the Hare grew so disturbed that it nearly vanished;
literally it seemed to melt away till I could only perceive its outline.
With a kind of shock I comprehended all the horror that it must feel at
such a prospect as I had suggested to it, and really this grasping of
the truth hurt my human pride. It had never come home to me before that
the circumstances of their lives--and deaths--must cause some creatures
to see us in strange lights.

"Oh! I have no doubt I was mistaken," I said hurriedly, "and that your
wishes on the point will be respected. I told you that I know nothing."

At these words the Hare became quite visible again.

It sat up and very reflectively began to rub its still shadowy nose with
a shadowy paw. I think that it remembered the sting of the salt water in
the cut made by the glass of the window through which it had sprung.

Believing that its remarkable story was done,