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Banish or brand a phantom or mind-shadow once worshipped as divine, and it will appear as a fairy, a demon, a mythical animal, or an oni; but to annihilate it requires many centuries of higher culture.

Entering the gate, the oni peeped about cautiously but saw no one. He went further on till he came to a large store house standing alone and built in the shape of a huge rice-measure. Not a door or window could be seen, but climbing up a narrow plank set against the top edge he peeped over, and there sat Daikoku. The oni descended and got into the room.

Maker of the soft night, bind my wounds with sleep, lest I cry out and be a coward and unworthy." Again and again, unconsciously, the words passed from her lips 'Vorganthe, pestorondikat Oni. At last she let down the blind, came to the bed, and once more gathered her child in her arms with an infinite hunger. This love was hers rich, untrammelled, and so sacred.

She took off the lid, when a horrible cuttle-fish rushed at her, and a horned oni snapped his tusks at her, a skeleton poked his bony fingers in her face, and finally a long, hairy serpent, with a big head and lolling tongue, sprang out and coiled around her, cracking her bones, and squeezing out her breath, till she died.

"They're saying there's been some shooting up by the Nicholas Station but that was last night. Some women had a procession about food.... Tak oni gavoryat so they say.... But I don't know. People have just come out to see what they can see...." And so they had women, boys, old men, little children.

Happily, the door into the garden stood wide open. Grabbing a fresh bottle of soy from the kitchen shelf, the Oni, with a hop, skip and jump, reached outdoors. Seeing a pair of klomps, or wooden shoes, near the steps, the Oni put his pair of three toes into them, to keep the dogs from scenting its tracks.

Packing up kit and dunnage, he crossed the Georgian Military Route on foot to Vladikavkaz, and thence with another horse and a Mohammedan Georgian as guide, Rostom by name, journeyed via Alighir and Oni up a side valley of unforgettable splendor toward an Imerethian hamlet where they meant to lay-in supplies for a prolonged expedition into the uninhabited wilderness.

They began to climb the hill but they had not gone far before they met a young oni who was a cook in the great dōji's kitchen. He was carrying a human limb for his master's lunch. They gnashed their teeth silently, and clutched their swords under their coats. Yet they courteously saluted the cook-demon, and asked for an interview with the chief.

And the Oni, who are demons, come to throw down the little stone-piles as fast as the children build; and these demons frighten the children, and torment them. But the little souls run to Jizo, who hides them in his great sleeves, and comforts them, and makes the demons go away.

What they expected to find was a monster. But no! So much experience, even within an hour, of things unknown in Japan, including chimneys, had been too severe for the poor, lonely, homesick Oni. There it lay dead on the floor, with its three fingers held tightly to its snout and closing it.