like!"

He turned and hugged Sozo.

"It wasn't me, Sozo," he sobbed. "Really, deep down, it was Odu, loving
you always! 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 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!
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."

I fell a wondering where Lona was gone, and dropping on the grass, took
the dead thing in my lap, and whispered in its ear, "Where are you,
Lona? I love you!" But its lips gave no answer. I kissed them, not quite
cold, laid the body down again, and appointing a guard over it, rose to
provide for the safety of Lona's people during the night.

Before the sun went down, I had set a watch over the princess outside
the camp, and sentinels round it: intending to walk about it myself
all night long, I told the rest of the army to go to sleep. They threw
themselves on the grass and were asleep in a moment.

When the moon rose I caught a glimpse of something white; it was the
leopardess. She swept silently round the sleeping camp, and I saw her
pass three times between the princess and the Little Ones. Thereupon I
made the watch lie down with the others, and stretched myself beside the
body of Lona.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. TO THE HOUSE OF BITTERNESS

In the morning we set out, and made for the forest as fast as we could.
I rode Lona's horse, and carried her body. I would take it to her
father: he would give it a couch in the chamber of his dead! or, if he
would not, seeing she had not come of herself, I would watch it in the
desert until it mouldered a