Page:Zodiac stories by Blanche Mary Channing.pdf/60

Rh and so they cowered down inside the big fishes, and trembled; not knowing what might happen to them if they were found. That the intruder was a sake-demon, they had no doubt.

The sake-demon looked round the dusky space, and said something to himself in a strange language which the children had never heard before. Then he advanced slowly across the room, towards the fish in which Cherry-Bloom was hidden. He stood so close to it that she could hear his breathing, and she thought he must hear her heart beat. But he did not seem to. He evidently admired the fish, walking around it, and studying it with interest; but to her joy he did not look into its mouth.

Presently, he turned away from the fish, and went up to a door which Cherry-Bloom had meant to examine after a while, if she had not been interrupted, and tried to open it. It seemed very tightly closed;