nd--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;