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"I know she is a bad giantess, but she is a wild beast all the same. I know she is the spotted one!" The other took a step nearer; Odu drew him back with a sharp pull. "Don't look at her!" he cried, shrinking away, yet fascinated by the hate-filled longing in her eyes. "She would eat you up in a moment! It was HER shadow! She is the wicked princess!" "That cannot be! they said she was beautiful!"
And Odu came up, and knocked Naughty away. I grew sick, and thought I must kill myself to get out of the black. Then came a horrible laugh that had heard my think, and it set the air trembling about me. And then I suppose I ran away, but I did not know I had run away until I found myself running, fast as could, and all the rest running too.
"I am sure she will never be unkind to you, even if she do hurt you!" They were silent for a while. "I'm not afraid of being hurt a little! a good deal!" cried Odu. "But I should not like scratches in the dark! The giants say the cat-woman has claw-feet all over her house!" "I am taking the princess to her," I said. "Why?" "Because she is her friend." "How can she be good then?"
I would have stopped, but I never thought of it until I was out of the gate among the grass. Then I knew that I had run away from a shadow that wanted to be me and wasn't, and that I was the Odu that loved Sozo. It was the shadow that got into me, and hated him from inside me; it was not my own self me! And now I know that I ought not to have run away!
"Yes but not too much at once though." "But the golden cock has crown!" argued the child, and fell again upon his companions. "Peter! Peter! Crispy!" he cried. "Wake up, Peter! wake up, Crispy! We are all awake but you two! The gold cock has crown SO loud! The sun is awake and coming! Oh, why WON'T you wake?" But Peter would not wake, neither would Crispy, and Odu wept outright at last.
"There is an easy way across the river-bed, which I will show you," she answered; "but you must pass once more through the monsters." "I fear for the children," I said. "Fear will not once come nigh them," she rejoined. We left the cottage. The beasts stood waiting about the door. Odu was already on the neck of one of the two that were to carry the princess.
"Are the rivers the glad of the princess?" asked Luva. "They are not her juice, for they are not red!" "They are the juice inside the juice," answered Mara. Odu put one finger to his eye, looked at it, and shook his head. "Princess will not bite now!" said Luva. "No; she will never do that again," replied Mara. " But now we must take her nearer home." "Is that a nest?" asked Sozo.
"She is waiting for the princess to wake, my child," said Mara. Odu looked at the princess, and saw beside her, still asleep, two of his companions. He flew at them. "Wake up! wake up!" he cried, and pushed and pulled, now this one, now that. But soon he began to look troubled, and turned to me with misty eyes. "They will not wake!" he said. "And why are they so cold?"
But indeed I did not quite know what I was doing until it was done! My legs did it, I think: they grew frightened, and forgot me, and ran away! Naughty legs! There! and there!" Thus ended Odu, with a kick to each of his naughty legs. "What became of the shadow?" I asked. "I do not know," he answered. "I suppose he went home into the night where there is no moon."
As we stopped at the house to which our guides led us, we heard a scream; I sprang down, and thundered at the door. My horse came and pushed me away with his nose, turned about, and had begun to batter the door with his heels, when up came little Odu on the leopardess, and at sight of her he stood still, trembling.
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