t wait
until I was a little stronger. But she must have taken the beast with
her, and been on her way home when I left, and come across my track. I
heard the SNIFF-SNUFF of the leopardess behind me, and ran;--oh, how I
ran!--But my darling will not die! There is no mark on her!"

"Where are you taking her?"

"Where no one ever tells!"

"Why is the princess so cruel?"

"There is an old prophecy that a child will be the death of her. That is
why she will listen to no offer of marriage, they say."

"But what will become of her country if she kill all the babies?"

"She does not care about her country. She sends witches around to teach
the women spells that keep babies away, and give them horrible things
to eat. Some say she is in league with the Shadows to put an end to the
race. At night we hear the questing beast, and lie awake and shiver. She
can tell at once the house where a baby is coming, and lies down at the
door, watching to get in. There are words that have power to shoo her
away, only they do not always work--But here I sit talking, and the
beast may by this time have got home, and her mistress be sending the
other after us!"

As thus she ended, she rose in haste.

"I do not think she will ever get home.--Let me carry the baby for you!"
I said, as I rose also.

She returned me no answer, and when I would have taken it, only clasped
it the closer.

"I cannot think," I said, walking by her side, "how the brute could be
bleeding so much!"

"Take my advice, and don't go near the palace," she answered. "There are
sounds in it at night as if the dead were trying to shriek, but could
not open their mouths!"

She bade me an abrupt farewell. Plainly she did not want more of my
company; so I stood still, and heard her footsteps die away on the
grass.

CHAPTER XXII. BULIKA

I had lost all notion of my position, and was walking about in pure,
helpless impatience, when suddenly I found myself in the path of the
leopardess, wading in the blood from her paw. It ran against my ankles
with the force of a small brook, and I got out of it the more quickly
because of an unshaped suspicion in my mind as to whose blood it might
be. But I kept close to the sound of it, walking up the side of the
stream, for it would guide me in the direction of Bulika.

I soon began to reflect, however, that no leopardess, no elephant, no
hugest animal that in our world preceded man, could keep such a torrent
flowing, except