My Nona plunged forward, her arms outstretched. Plunged silently, swiftly; and she was upon her enemy before the Maagog was fully aware of her. Their bodies met; the Maagog woman (she was no more than a girl) screamed; but Nona’s hand went over her mouth.
They fought, tore at each other, with the Maagog girl’s four arms gripping my Nona’s frail body like the tentacles of an octopus. But Nona was the stronger; her body built of firmer flesh; her muscles more powerful.
Abruptly the Maagog girl yielded. They had been tumbling over and over in the water—wound and entangled with sea-weed; and save for that one scream, fighting silently. Nona pulled her captured antagonist to a tree-stalk, and in one of its branches, held her there firmly. And not until then did she realize that this was Maaret, the girl who loved Og—the girl who had helped us escape from the Water of Wild Things.
“You!”
But Maaret now was crying. “What do you want of me? You go away. I hate you. You tried to take my Og. You let me alone.”
Women are strange creatures! My Nona put her arms tenderly about the vehement girl.
“You must not hate me, Maaret. What are you doing here?”
“Og—he is down there. Fighting. For you, he fights—you, the woman who stole his heart. And he may be killed, and I love him.”
What could Nona say? This girl had followed Og to battle—followed, hoping to keep him out of danger, because she loved him. And at the last, frightened, she had crawled away to the treetops—crying with fear and misery when Nona set upon her.