"It has been just seven days," said North Wind smiling. "Come now, we will go."
The next moment, Diamond sat alone on the rock. North Wind had vanished. But something like a cockchafer flew past his face. Around and around him in circles it went.
"Come along, Diamond," it said in his ear. "It is time we were setting out for Sandwich."
It seemed to drop to the ground but when he looked Diamond could see nothing but a little spider with long legs which made its way over the ice toward the south. It grew and grew till Diamond discovered that it was not a spider but a weasel. Away glided the weasel and away went Diamond after it. The weasel grew and grew and grew till he saw it was not a weasel but a cat. Away went the cat and away went Diamond after it. When he came up with it, it was not a cat but a leopard. The leopard grew to a jaguar and the jaguar to a Bengal tiger.
Of none of them was Diamond afraid for he had been at North Wind's back and he could be afraid of her no longer whatever she did or grew to be. The tiger flew over the snow in a straight line for the south, growing less and less to Diamond's eyes till it was only a black speck upon the whiteness. Then it vanished altogether.
And now Diamond felt that he would rather not run any further and that the ice had got very rough. Besides he was near the precipices that bounded the sea. So he slowed up his pace to a walk and said to himself, "North Wind will come back for me, I know. She is just teasing me a little. Then, too, she must get started some way to grow bigger and bigger all the time!"
"Here I am, dear boy," said North Wind's voice behind him.
Diamond turned and saw her as he liked best to see her, standing beside him a tall, beautiful woman.
"Where is the tiger?" he said. "But of course, you were the tiger. It puzzles me a little. I saw it such a long way off before me, and there you are behind me. It is odd, you know."