Contents:
I. Watho
II. Aurora
III. Vesper
IV. Photogen
V. Nycteris
VI. How Photogen Grew
VII. How Nycteris Grew
VIII. The Lamp
IX. Out
X. The Great Lamp
XI. The Sunset
XII. The Garden
XIII. Something Quite New
XIV. The Sun
XV. The Coward Hero
XVI. The Evil Nurse
XVII. Watho's Wolf
XVIII. Refuge
XIX. The Werewolf
XX. All Is Well.
Chapter One
Watho
THERE was once a witch who desired to know everything. But the
wiser a witch is, the harder she knocks her head against the wall
when she comes to it. Her name was Watho, and she had a wolf in
her mind. She cared for nothing in itself only for knowing it.
She was not naturally cruel, but the wolf had made her cruel.
She was tall and graceful, with a white skin, red hair, and black
eyes, which had a red fire in them. She was straight and strong,
but now and then would fall bent together, shudder, and sit for
a moment with her head turned over her shoulder, as if the wolf
had got out of her mind onto her back.
Chapter Two
Aurora
THIS witch got two ladies to visit her. One of them belonged to
the court, and her husband had been sent on a far and difficult
embassy. The other was a young widow whose husband had lately
died, and who had since lost her sight. Watho lodged them in different
parts of her castle, and they did not know of each other's existence.
The castle stood on the side of a hill sloping gently down into
a arrow valley, in which was a river with a pebbly channel and
a continual song. The garden went down to the bank of the river,
enclosed by high walls, which crossed the river and there stopped.
Each wall had a double row of battlements, and between the rows
was a narrow walk.
In the topmost story of the castle the Lady Aurora occupied a
spacious apartment of several large rooms looking southward. The
windows projected oriel-wise over the garden below, and there
was a splendid view from them both up and down and across the
river. The opposite side of the valley was steep, but not very
high. Far away snowpeaks were visible. These rooms Aurora seldom
left, but their airy spaces, the brilliant landscape and sky,
the plentiful sunlight, the musical instruments, books, pictures,
curiosities, with the company of Watho, who made herself charming,
precluded all dullness. She had venison and feathered game to
eat, milk and pale sunny sparkling wine to drink.
She had hair of the yellow gold, waved and rippled; her skin was
fair, not white like Watho's, and her eyes were of the blue of
the heavens when bluest; her features were delicate but strong,
her mouth large and finely curved, and haunted with smiles.
Chapter Three
Vesper
BEHIND the castle the hill rose abruptly; the northeastern tower,
indeed, was in contact with the rock and communicated with the
interior of it. For in the rock was a series of chambers, known
only to Watho and the one servant whom she trusted, called Falca.
Some former owner had constructed these chambers after tomb of
an Egyptian king, and probably with the same design, for in the
center of one of them stood what could only be a sarcophagus,
but that and others were walled off. The sides and roofs of them
were carved in low relief, and curiously painted. Here the witch
lodged the blind lady, whose name was Vesper. Her eyes were black,
with long black lashes; her skin had a look of darkened silver,
but was of purest tint and grain; her hair was black and fine
and straight flowing; her features were exquisitely formed, and
if less beautiful yet more lovely from sadness; she always looked
as if she wanted to lie down and not rise again. She did not know
she was lodged in a tomb, though now and then she wondered she
never touched a window. There were many couches, covered with
richest silk, and soft as her own cheek, for her to lie upon;
and the carpets were so thick, she might have cast herself down
anywhere--as befitted a tomb. The place was dry and warm, and
cunningly pierced for air, so that it was always fresh, and lacked
only sunlight. There the witch fed her upon milk, and wine dark
as a carbuncle, and pomegranates, and purple grapes, and birds
that dwell in marshy piaces; and she played to her mournful tunes,
and caused wailful violins to attend her, and told her sad tales,
thus holding her ever in an atmosphere of sweet sorrow.
Chapter Four
Photogen
WATHO at length had her desire, for witches often get what they
want; a splendid boy was born to the fair Aurora. Just as the
sun rose, he opened his eyes. Watho carried him immediately to
a distant part of the castle, and persuaded the mother that he
never cried but once, dying the moment he was born. Overcome with
grief, Aurora left the castle as soon as she was able, and Watho
never invited her again.
And now the witch's care was that the child should not know darkness.
Persistently she trained him until at last he never slept during
the day and never woke during the night. She never let him see
anything black, and even kept all dull colors out of his way.
Never, if she could help it, would she let a shadow fall upon
him, watching against shadows as if they had been live things
that would hurt him. All day he basked in the full splendor of
the sun, in the same large rooms his mother had occupied. Watho
used him to the sun, until he could bear more of it than any dark-blooded
African. In the hottest of every day, she stripped him and laid
him in it, that he might ripen like a peach; and the boy rejoiced
in it, and would resist being dressed again. She brought all her
knowledge to bear on making his muscles strong and elastic and
swiftly responsive--that his soul, she said laughingly, might
sit in every fiber, be all in every part, and awake the moment
of call. His hair was of the red gold, but his eyes grew darker
as he grew, until they were as black as Vesper's. He was the merriest
of creatures, always laughing, always loving, for a moment raging,
then laughing afresh. Watho called him Photogen.
Chapter Five
Nycteris
FIVE or six months after the birth of Photogen, the dark lady
also gave birth to a baby: in the windowless tomb of a blind mother,
in the dead of night, under the feeble rays of a lamp in an alabaster
globe, a girl came into the darkness with a wail. And just as
she was born for the first time, Vesper was born for the second,
and passed into a world as unknown to her as this was to her child--who
would have to be born yet again before she could see her mother.
Watho called her Nycteris, and she grew as like Vesper as possible--in
all but one particular. She had the same dark skin, dark eyelashes
and brows, dark hair, and gentle sad look; but she had just the
eyes of Aurora, the mother of Photogen, and if they grew darker
as she grew older, it was only a darker blue. Watho, with the
help of Falca, took the greatest possible care of her-- in every
way consistent with her plans, that is--the main point in which
was that she should never see any light but what came from the
lamp. Hence her optic nerves, and indeed her whole apparatus for
seeing, grew both larger and more sensitive; her eyes, indeed,
stopped short only of being too large. Under her dark hair and
forehead and eyebrows, they looked like two breaks in a cloudy
night-sky, through which peeped the heaven where the stars and
no clouds live. She was a sadly dainty little creature. No one
in the world except those two was aware of the being of the little
bat. Watho trained her to sleep during the day and wake during
the night. She taught her music, in which she was herself a proficient,
and taught her scarcely anything else.
Chapter Six
How Photogen Grew
THE hollow in which the castle of Watho lay was a cleft in a plain
rather than a valley among hills, for at the top of its steep
sides, both north and south, was a tableland, large and wide.
It was covered with rich grass and flowers, with here and there
a wood, the outlying colony of a great forest. These grassy plains
were the finest hunting grounds in the world. Great herds of small
but fierce cattle, with humps and shaggy manes, roved about them,
also antelopes and gnus, and the tiny roedeer, while the woods
were swarming with wild creatures. The tables of the castle were
mainly supplied from them. The chief of Watho's huntsmen was a
fine fellow, and when Photogen began to outgrow the training she
could give him, she handed him over to Fargu. He with a will set
about teaching him all he knew. He got him pony after pony, larger
and larger as he grew, every one less manageable than that which
had preceded it, and advanced him from pony to horse, and from
horse to horse, until he was equal to anything in that kind which
the country produced. In similar fashion he trained him to the
use of bow and arrow, substituting every three months a stronger
bow and longer arrows; and soon he became, even on horseback,
a wonderful archer. He was but fourteen when he killed his first
bull, causing jubilation among the huntsmen, and indeed, through
all the castle, for there too he was the favorite. Every day,
almost as soon as the sun was up, he went out hunting, and would
in general be out nearly the whole of the day. But Watho had laid
upon Fargu just one commandment, namely, that Photogen should
on no account, whatever the plea, be out until sundown, or so
near it as to wake in him the desire of seeing what was going
to happen; and this commandment Fargu was anxiously careful not
to break; for although he would not have trembled had a whole
herd of bulls come down upon him, charging at full speed across
the level, and not an arrow left in his quiver, he was more than
afraid of his mistress. When she looked at him in a certain way,
he felt, he said, as if his heart turned to ashes in his breast,
and what ran in his veins was no longer blood, but milk and water.
So that, ere long, as Photogen grew older, Fargu began to tremble,
for he found it steadily growing harder to restrain him. So full
of life was he, as Fargu said to his mistress, much to her content,
that he was more like a live thunderbolt than a human being. He
did not know what fear was, and that not because he did not know
danger; for he had had a severe laceration from the razor-like
tusk of a boar--whose spine, however, he had severed with one
blow of his hunting knife, before Fargu could reach him with defense.
When he would spur his horse into the midst of a herd of bulls,
carrying only his bow and his short sword, or shoot an arrow into
a herd, and go after it as if to reclaim it for a runaway shaft,
arriving in time to follow it with a spear thrust before the wounded
animal knew which way to charge, Fargu thought with terror how
it would be when he came to know the temptation of the huddle-spot
leopards, and the knife-clawed lynxes, with which the forest was
haunted. For the boy had been so steeped in the sun, from childhood
so saturated with his influence, that he looked upon every danger
from a sovereign height of courage. When, therefore, he was approaching
his sixteenth year, Fargu ventured to beg Watho that she would
lay her commands upon the youth himself, and release him from
responsibility for him. One might as soon hold a tawny-maned lion
as Photogen, he said. Watho called the youth, and in the presence
of Fargu laid her command upon him never to be out when the rim
of the sun should touch the horizon, accompanying the prohibition
with hints of consequences, none the less awful than they were
obscure. Photogen listened respectfully, but, knowing neither
the taste of fear nor the temptation of the night, her words were
but sounds to him.
Chapter Seven
How Nycteris Grew
THE little education she intended nycteris to have, Watho gave
her by word of mouth. Not meaning she should have light enough
to read by, to leave other reasons unmentioned, she never put
a book in her hands. Nycteris, however, saw so much better than
Watho imagined that the light she gave her was quite sufficient,
and she managed to coax Falca into teaching her the letters, after
which she taught herself to read, and Falca now and then brought
her a child's book. But her chief pleasure was in her instrument.
Her very fingers loved it and would wander about its keys like
feeding sheep. She was not unhappy. She knew nothing of the world
except the tomb in which she dwelt, and had some pleasure in everything
she did. But she desired, nevertheless, something more or different.
She did not know what it was, and the nearest she could come to
expressing it to herself was--that she wanted more room. Watho
and Falca would go from her beyond the shine of the lamp, and
come again; therefore surely there must be more room somewhere.
As often as she was left alone, she would fall to poring over
the colored bas-reliefs on the walls. These were intended to represent
various of the powers of Nature under allegorical similitudes,
and as nothing can be made that does not belong to the general
scheme, she could not fail at least to imagine a flicker of relationship
between some of them, and thus a shadow of the reality of things
found its way to her.
There was one thing, however, which moved and taught her more
than all the rest--the lamp, namely, that hung from the ceiling,
which she always saw alight, though she never saw the flame, only
the slight condensation towards the center of the alabaster globe.
And besides the operation of the light itself after its kind,
the indefiniteness of the globe, and the softness of the light,
giving her the feeling as if her eyes could go in and into its
whiteness, were somehow also associated with the idea of space
and room. She would sit for an hour together gazing up at the
lamp, and her heart would swell as she gazed. She would wonder
what had hurt her when she found her face wet with tears, and
then would wonder how she could have been hurt without knowing
it. She never looked thus at the lamp except when she was alone.
Chapter Eight
The Lamp
WATHO, having given orders, took it for granted they were obeyed,
and that Falca was all night long with Nycteris, whose day it
was. But Falca could not get into the habit of sleeping through
the day, and would often leave her alone half the night. Then
it seemed to Nycteris that the white lamp was watching over her.
As it was never permitted to go out--while she was awake at least--
Nycteris, except by shutting her eyes, knew less about darkness
than she did about light. Also, the lamp being fixed high overhead,
and in the center of everything, she did not know much about shadows
either. The few there were fell almost entirely on the floor,
or kept like mice about the foot of the walls.
Once, when she was thus alone, there came the noise of a far-off
rumbling: she had never before heard a sound of which she did
not know the origin, and here therefore was a new sign of something
beyond these chambers. Then came a trembling, then a shaking;
the lamp dropped from the ceiling to the floor with a great crash,
and she felt as if both her eyes were hard shut and both her hands
over them. She concluded that it was the darkness that had made
the rumbling and the shaking, and rushing into the room, had thrown
down the lamp. She sat trembling. The noise and the shaking ceased,
but the light did not return. The darkness had eaten it up!
Her lamp gone, the desire at once awoke to get out of her prison.
She scarcely knew what _out_ meant; out of one room into another,
where there was not even a dividing door, only an open arch, was
all she knew of the world. But suddenly she remembered that she
had heard Falca speak of the lamp _going out:_ this must be what
she had meant? And if the lamp had gone out, where had it gone?
Surely where Falca went, and like her it would come again. But
she could not wait. The desire to go out grew irresistible. She
must follow her beautiful lamp! She must find it! She must see
what it was about!
Now, there was a curtain covering a recess in the wall, where
some of her toys and gymnastic things were kept; and from behind
that curtain Watho and Falca always appeared, and behind it they
vanished. How they came out of solid wall, she had not an idea,
all up to the wall was open space, and all beyond it seemed wall;
but clearly the first and only thing she could do was to feel
her way behind the curtain. It was so dark that a cat could not
have caught the largest of mice. Nycteris could see better than
any cat, but now her great eyes were not of the smallest use to
her. As she went she trod upon a piece of the broken lamp. She
had never worn shoes or stockings, and the fragment, though, being
of soft alabaster, it did not cut, yet hurt her foot. She did
not know what it was, but as it had not been there before the
darkness came, she suspected that it had to do with the lamp.
She kneeled therefore, and searched with her hands, and bringing
two large pieces together, recognized the shape of the lamp. Therefore
it flashed upon her that the lamp was dead, that this brokenness
was the death of which she had read without understanding, that
the darkness had killed the lamp. What then could Falca have meant
when she spoke of the lamp _going out?_ There was the lamp--dead
indeed, and so changed that she would never have taken it for
a lamp but for the shape! No, it was not the lamp anymore now
it was dead, for all that made it a lamp was gone, namely, the
bright shining of it. Then it must be the shine, the light, that
had gone out! That must be what Falca meant--and it must be somewhere
in the other place in the wall. She started afresh after it, and
groped her way to the curtain.
Now, she had never in her life tried to get out, and did not know
how; but instinctively she began to move her hands about over
one of the walls behind the curtain, half expecting them to go
into it, as she supposed Watho and Falca did. But the wall repelled
her with inexorable hardness, and she turned to the one opposite.
In so doing, she set her foot upon an ivory die, and as it met
sharply the same spot the broken alabaster had already hurt, she
fell forward with her outstretched hands against the wall. Something
gave way, and she tumbled out of the cavern.
Chapter Nine
Out
BUT alas! out was very much like in, for the same enemy, the darkness,
was here also. The next moment, however, came a great gladness--a
firefly, which had wandered in from the garden. She saw the tiny
spark in the distance. With slow pulsing ebb and throb of light,
it came pushing itself through the air, drawing nearer and nearer,
with that motion which more resembles swimming than flying, and
the light seemed the source of its own motion.
"My lamp! my lamp!" cried Nycteris. "It is the shiningness of
my lamp, which the cruel darkness drove out. My good lamp has
been waiting for me here all the time! It knew I would come after
it, and waited to take me with it."
She followed the firefly, which, like herself, was seeking the
way out. If it did not know the way, it was yet light; and, because
all light is one, any light may serve to guide to more light.
If she was mistaken in thinking it the spirit of her lamp, it
was of the same spirit as her lamp and had wings. The gold-green
jet-boat, driven by light, went throbbing before her through a
long narrow passage. Suddenly it rose higher, and the same moment
Nycteris fell upon an ascending stair. She had never seen a stair
before, and found going up a curious sensation. Just as she reached
what seemed the top, the firefly ceased to shine, and so disappeared.
She was in utter darkness once more. But when we are following
the light, even its extinction is a guide. If the firefly had
gone on shining, Nycteris would have seen the stair turn and would
have gone up to Watho's bedroom; whereas now, feeling straight
before her, she came to a latched door, which after a good deal
of trying she managed to open--and stood in a maze of wondering
perplexity, awe, and delight. What was it? Was it outside of her,
or something taking place in her head? Before her was a very long
and very narrow passage, broken up she could not tell how, and
spreading out above and on all sides to an infinite height and
breadth and distance--as if space itself were growing out of a
trough. It was brighter than her rooms had ever been--brighter
than if six alabaster lamps had been burning in them. There was
a quantity of strange streaking and mottling about it, very different
from the shapes on her walls. She was in a dream of pleasant perplexity,
of delightful bewilderment. She could not tell whether she was
upon her feet or drifting about like the firefly, driven by the
pulses of an inward bliss. But she knew little as yet of her inheritance.
Unconsciously, she took one step forward from the threshold, and
the girl who had been from her very birth a troglodyte stood in
the ravishing glory of a southern night, lit by a perfect moon--not
the moon of our northern clime, but a moon like silver glowing
in a furnace-- a moon one could see to be a globe--not far off,
a mere flat disk on the face of the blue, but hanging down halfway,
and looking as if one could see all around it by a mere bending
of the neck.
"It is my lamp," she said, and stood dumb with parted lips. She
looked and felt as if she had been standing there in silent ecstasy
from the beginning.
"No, it is not my lamp," she said after a while; "it is the mother
of all the lamps."
And with that she fell on her knees and spread out her hands to
the moon. She could not in the least have told what was in her
mind, but the action was in reality just a begging of the moon
to be what she was--that precise incredible splendor hung in the
far-off roof, that very glory essential to the being of poor girls
born and bred in caverns. It was a resurrection--nay, a birth
itself, to Nycteris. What the vast blue sky, studded with tiny
sparks like the heads of diamond nails, could be; what the moon,
looking so absolutely content with light--why, she knew less about
them than you and I! but the greatest of astronomers might envy
the rapture of such a first impression at the age of sixteen.
Immeasurably imperfect it was, but false the impression could
not be, for she saw with the eyes made for seeing, and saw indeed
what many men are too wise to see.
As she knelt, something softly flapped her, embraced her, stroked
her, fondled her. She rose to her feet but saw nothing, did not
know what it was. It was likest a woman's breath. For she knew
nothing of the air even, had never breathed the still, newborn
freshness of the world. Her breath had come to her only through
long passages and spirals in the rock. Still less did she know
of the air alive with motion--of that thrice-blessed thing, the
wind of a summer night. It was like a spiritual wine, filling
her whole being with an intoxication of purest joy. To breathe
was a perfect existence. It seemed to her the light itself she
drew into her lungs. Possessed by the power of the gorgeous night,
she seemed at one and the same moment annihilated and glorified.
She was in the open passage or gallery that ran around the top
of the garden walls, between the cleft battlements, but she did
not once look down to see what lay beneath. Her soul was drawn
to the vault above her with its lamp and its endless room. At
last she burst into tears, and her heart was relieved, as the
night itself is relieved by its lightning and rain.
And now she grew thoughtful. She must hoard this splendor! What
a little ignorance her jailers had made of her! Life was a mighty
bliss, and they had scraped hers to the bare bone! They must not
know that she knew. She must hide her knowledge-- hide it even
from her own eyes, keeping it close in her bosom, content to know
that she had it, even when she could not brood on its presence,
feasting her eyes with its glory. She turned from the vision,
therefore, with a sigh of utter bliss, and with soft quiet steps
and groping hands stole back into the darkness of the rock. What
was darkness or the laziness of Time's feet to one who had seen
what she had that night seen? She was lifted above all weariness--above
all wrong.
When Falca entered, she uttered a cry of terror. But Nycteris
called to her not to be afraid, and told her how there had come
a rumbling and shaking, and the lamp had fallen. Then Falca went
and told her mistress, and within an hour a new globe hung in
the place of the old one. Nycteris thought it did not look so
bright and clear as the former, but she made no lamentation over
the change; she was far too rich to heed it. For now, prisoner
as she knew herself, her heart was full of glory and gladness;
at times she had to hold herself from jumping up, and going dancing
and singing about the room. When she slept, instead of dull dreams,
she had splendid visions. There were times, it is true, when she
became restless, and impatient to look upon her riches, but then
she would reason with herself, saying, "What does it matter if
I sit here for ages with my poor pale lamp, when out there a lamp
is burning at which ten thousand little lamps are glowing with
wonder?"
She never doubted she had looked upon the day and the sun, of
which she had read; and always when she read of the day and the
sun, she had the night and the moon in her mind; and when she
read of the night and the moon, she thought only of the cave and
the lamp that hung there.
Chapter Ten
The Great Lamp
IT was some time before she had a second opportunity of going
out, for Falca since the fall of the lamp had been a little more
careful, and seldom left her for long. But one night, having a
little headache, Nycteris lay down upon her bed, and was lying
with her eyes closed, when she heard Falca come to her, and felt
she was bending over her. Disinclined to talk, she did not open
her eyes, and lay quite still. Satisfied that she was asleep,
Falca left her, moving so softly that her very caution made Nycteris
open her eyes and look after her--just in time to see her vanish--through
a picture, as it seemed, that hung on the wall a long way from
the usual place of issue. She jumped up, her headache forgotten,
and ran in the opposite direction; got out, groped her way to
the stair, climbed, and reached the top of the wall.--Alas! the
great room was not so light as the little one she had left! Why?--Sorrow
of sorrows! the great lamp was gone! Had its globe fallen? and
its lovely light gone out upon great wings, a resplendent firefly,
oaring itself through a yet grander and lovelier room? She looked
down to see if it lay anywhere broken to pieces on the carpet
below; but she could not even see the carpet. But surely nothing
very dreadful could have happened-- no rumbling or shaking; for
there were all the little lamps shining brighter than before,
not one of them looking as if any unusual matter had befallen.
What if each of those little lamps was growing into a big lamp,
and after being a big lamp for a while, had to go out and grow
a bigger lamp still--out there, beyond this _out?_ --Ah! here
was the living thing that could not be seen, come to her again--bigger
tonight! with such loving kisses, and such liquid strokings of
her cheeks and forehead, gently tossing her hair, and delicately
toying with it! But it ceased, and all was still. Had it gone
out? What would happen next? Perhaps the little lamps had not
to grow great lamps, but to fall one by one and go out first?--With
that came from below a sweet scent, then another, and another.
Ah, how delicious! Perhaps they were all coming to her only on
their way out after the great lamp!-- Then came the music of the
river, which she had been too absorbed in the sky to note the
first time. What was it? Alas! alas! another sweet living thing
on its way out. They were all marching slowly out in long lovely
file, one after the other, each taking its leave of her as it
passed! It must be so: here were more and more sweet sounds, following
and fading! The whole of the _Out_ was going out again; it was
all going after the great lovely lamp! She would be left the only
creature in the solitary day! Was there nobody to hang up a new
lamp for the old one, and keep the creatures from going.--She
crept back to her rock very sad. She tried to comfort herself
by saying that anyhow there would be room out there; but as she
said it she shuddered at the thought of _empty_ room.
When next she succeeded un getting out, a half-moon hung in the
east: a new lamp had come, she thought, and all would be well.
It would be endless to describe the phases of feeling through
which Nycteris passed, more numerous and delicate than those of
a thousand changing moons. A fresh bliss bloomed in her soul with
every varying aspect of infinite nature. Ere long she began to
suspect that the new moon was the old moon, gone out and come
in again like herself; also that, unlike herself, it wasted and
grew again; that it was indeed a live thing, subject like herself
to caverns, and keepers, and solitudes, escaping and shining when
it could. Was it a prison like hers it was shut in? and did it
grow dark when the lamp left it? Where could be the way into it?--With
that, first she began to look below, as well as above and around
her; and then first noted the tops of the trees between her and
the floor. There were palms with their red-fingered hands full
of fruit; eucalyptus trees crowded with little boxes of powder
puffs; oleanders with their half-caste roses; and orange trees
with their clouds of young silver stars and their aged balls of
gold. Her eyes could see colors invisible to ours in the moonlight,
and all these she could distinguish well, though at first she
took them for the shapes and colors of the carpet of the great
room. She longed to get down among them, now she saw they were
real creatures, but she did not know how. She went along the whole
length of the wall to the end that crossed the river, but found
no way of going down. Above the river she stopped to gaze with
awe upon the rushing water. She knew nothing of water but from
what she drank and what she bathed in; and as the moon shone on
the dark, swift stream, singing lustily as it flowed, she did
not doubt the river was alive, a swift rushing serpent of life,
going--out?--whither? And then she wondered if what was brought
into her rooms had been killed that she might drink it, and have
her bath in it.
Once when she stepped out upon the wall, it was into the midst
of a fierce wind. The trees were all roaring. Great clouds were
rushing along the skies and tumbling over the little lamps: the
great lamp had not come yet. All was in tumult. The wind seized
her garments and hair and shook them as if it would tear them
from her. What could she have done to make the gentle creature
so angry? Or was this another creature altogether-- of the same
kind, but hugely bigger, and of a very different temper and behavior?
But the whole place was angry! Or was it that the creatures dwelling
in it, the wind, and the trees, and the clouds, and the river,
had all quarreled, each with all the rest? Would the whole come
to confusion and disorder? But as she gazed wondering and disquieted,
the moon, larger than ever she had seen her, came lifting herself
above the horizon to look, broad and red, as if she, too, were
swollen with anger that she had been roused from her rest by their
noise, and compelled to hurry up to see what her children were
about, thus rioting in her absence, lest they should rack the
whole frame of things. And as she rose, the loud wind grew quieter
and scolded less fiercely, the trees grew stiller and moaned with
a lower complaint, and the clouds hunted and hurled themselves
less wildly across the sky. And as if she were pleased that her
children obeyed her very presence, the moon grew smaller as she
ascended the heavenly stair; her puffed cheeks sank, her complexion
grew clearer, and a sweet smile spread over her countenance, as
peacefully she rose and rose. But there was treason and rebellion
in her court; for ere she reached the top of her great stairs,
the clouds had assembled, forgetting their late wars, and very
still they were as they laid their heads together and conspired.
Then combining, and lying silently in wait until she came near,
they threw themselves upon her and swallowed her up. Down from
the roof came spots of wet, faster and faster, and they wetted
the cheeks of Nycteris; and what could they be but the tears of
the moon, crying because her children were smothering her? Nycteris
wept too and, not knowing what to think, stole back in dismay
to her room.
The next time, she came out in fear and trembling. There was the
moon still! away in the west--poor, indeed, and old, and looking
dreadfully worn, as if all the wild beasts in the sky had been
gnawing at her--but there she was, alive still, and able to shine!
Chapter Eleven
The Sunset
KNOWING nothing of darkness, or stars, or moon, Photogen spent
his days in hunting. On a great white horse he swept over the
grassy plains, glorying in the sun, fighting the wind, and killing
the buffaloes.
One morning, when he happened to be on the ground a little earlier
than usual, and before his attendants, he caught sight of an animal
unknown to him, stealing from a hollow into which the sunrays
had not yet reached. Like a swift shadow it sped over the grass,
slinking southward to the forest. He gave chase, noted the body
of a buffalo it had half eaten, and pursued it the harder. But
with great leaps and bounds the creature shot farther and farther
ahead of him, and vanished. Turning therefore defeated, he met
Fargu, who had been following him as fast as his horse could carry
him.
"What animal was that, Fargu?" he asked. "How he did run!"
Fargu answered he might be a leopard, but he rather thought from
his pace and look that he was a young lion.
"What a coward he must be!" said Photogen.
"Don't be too sure of that," rejoined Fargu.
"He is one of the creatures the sun makes umcomfortable. As soon
as the sun is down, he will be brave enough."
He had scarcely said it, when he repented; nor did he regret it
the less when he found that Photogen made no reply. But alas!
said was said.
"Then," said Photogen to himself, "that contemptible beast is
one of the terrors of sundown, of which Madame Watho spoke!"
He hunted all day, but not with his usual spirit. He did not ride
so hard, and did not kill one buffalo. Fargu to his dismay observed
also that he took every pretext for moving farther south, nearer
to the forest. But all at once, the sun now sinking in the west,
he seemed to change his mind, for he turned his horse's head and
rode home so fast that the rest could not keep him in sight. When
they arrived, they found his horse in the stable and concluded
that he had gone into the castle. But he had in truth set out
again by the back of it. Crossing the river a good way up the
valley, he reascended to the ground they had left, and just before
sunset reached the skirts of the forest.
The level orb shone straight in between the bare stems, and saying
to himself he could not fail to find the beast, he rushed into
the wood. But even as he entered, he turned and looked to the
west. The rim of the red was touching the horizon, all jagged
with broken hills. "Now," said Photogen, "we shall see"; but he
said it in the face of a darkness he had not proved. The moment
the sun began to sink among the spikes and saw edges, with a kind
of sudden flap at his heart a fear inexplicable laid hold of the
youth; and as he had never felt anything of the kind before, the
very fear itself terrified him. As the sun sank, it rose like
the shadow of the world and grew deeper and darker. He could not
even think what it might be, so utterly did it enfeeble him. When
the last flaming scimitar edge of the sun went out like a lamp,
his horror seemed to blossom into very madness. Like the closing
lids of an eye--for there was no twilight, and this night no moon--the
terror and the darkness rushed together, and he knew them for
one. He was no longer the man he had known, or rather thought
himself. The courage he had had was in no sense his own--he had
only had courage, not been courageous; it had left him, and he
could scarcely stand-- certainly not stand straight, for not one
of his joints could he make stiff or keep from trembling. He was
but a spark of the sun, in himself nothing.
The beast was behind him--stealing upon him! He turned. All was
dark in the wood, but to his fancy the darkness here and there
broke into pairs of green eyes, and he had not the power even
to raise his bow hand from his side. In the strength of despair
he strove to rouse courage enough--not to fight--that he did not
even desire--but to run. Courage to flee home was all he could
ever imagine, and it would not come. But what he had not was ignominiously
given him. A cry in the wood, half a screech, half a growl, sent
him running like a boar-wounded cur. It was not even himself that
ran, it was the fear that had come alive in his legs; he did not
know that they moved. But as he ran he grew able to run--gained
courage at least to be a coward. The stars gave a little light.
Over the grass he sped, and nothing followed him. "How fallen,
how changed," from the youth who had climbed the hill as the sun
went down! A mere contempt to himself, the self that contemned
was a coward with the self it contemned! There lay the shapeless
black of a buffalo, humped upon the grass. He made a wide circuit
and swept on like a shadow driven in the wind. For the wind had
arisen, and added to his terror: it blew from behind him. He reached
the brow of the valley and shot down the steep descent like a
falling star. Instantly the whole upper country behind him arose
and pursued him! The wind came howling after him, filled with
screams, shrieks, yells, roars, laughter, and chattering, as if
all the animals of the forest were careering with it. In his ears
was a trampling rush, the thunder of the hoofs of the cattle,
in career from every quarter of the wide plains to the brow of
the hill above him. He fled straight for the castle, scarcely
with breath enough to pant.
As he reached the bottom of the valley, the moon peered up over
its edge. He had never seen the moon before--except in the daytime,
when he had taken her for a thin bright cloud. She was a fresh
terror to him--so ghostly! so ghastly! so gruesome!-- so knowing
as she looked over the top of her garden wall upon the world outside!
That was the night itself! the darkness alive-- and after him!
the horror of horrors coming down the sky to curdle his blood
and turn his brain to a cinder! He gave a sob and made straight
for the river, where it ran between the two walls, at the bottom
of the garden. He plunged in, struggled through, clambered up
the bank, and fell senseless on the grass.
Chapter Twelve
The Garden
ALTHOUGH Nycteris took care not to stay out long at a time, and
used every precaution, she could hardly have escaped discovery
so long had it not been that the strange attacks to which Watho
was subject had been more frequent of late, and had at last settled
into an illness which kept her to her bed. But whether from an
access of caution or from suspicion, Falca, having now to be much
with her mistress both day and night, took it at length into her
head to fasten the door as often as she went by her usual place
of exit, so that one night, when Nycteris pushed, she found, to
her surprise and dismay, that the wall pushed her again, and would
not let her through; nor with all her searching could she discover
wherein lay the cause of the change. Then first she felt the pressure
of her prison walls, and turning, half in despair, groped her
way to the picture where she had once seen Falca disappear. There
she soon found the spot by pressing upon which the wall yielded.
It let her through into a sort of cellar, where was a glimmer
of light from a sky whose blue was paled by the moon. From the
cellar she got into a long passage, into which the moon was shining,
and came to a door. She managed to open it, and to her great joy
found herself in _the other place_, not on the top of the wall,
however, but in the garden she had longed to enter. Noiseless
as a fluffy moth she flitted away into the covert of the trees
and shrubs, her bare feet welcomed by the softest of carpets,
which, by the very touch, her feet knew to be alive, whence it
came that it was so sweet and friendly to them. A soft little
wind was out among the trees, running now here, now there, like
a child that had got its will. She went dancing over the grass,
looking behind her at her shadow as she went. At first she had
taken it for a little black creature that made game of her, but
when she perceived that it was only where she kept the moon away,
and that every tree, however great and grand a creature, had also
one of these strange attendants, she soon learned not to mind
it, and by and by it became the source of as much amusement to
her as to any kitten its tail. It was long before she was quite
at home with the trees, however. At one time they seemed to disapprove
of her; at another not even to know she was there, and to be altogether
taken up with their own business. Suddenly, as she went from one
to another of them, looking up with awe at the murmuring mystery
of their branches and leaves, she spied one a little way off,
which was very different from all the rest. It was white, and
dark, and sparkling, and spread like a palm--a small slender palm,
without much head; and it grew very fast, and sang as it grew.
But it never grew any bigger, for just as fast as she could see
it growing, it kept falling to pieces. When she got close to it,
she discovered that it was a water tree--made of just such water
as she washed with--only it was alive of course, like the river--a
different sort of water from that, doubtless, seeing the one crept
swiftly along the floor, and the other shot straight up, and fell,
and swallowed itself, and rose again. She put her feet into the
marble basin, which was the flowerpot in which it grew. It was
full of real water, living and cool--so nice, for the night was
hot!
But the flowers! ah, the flowers! she was friends with them from
the very first. What wonderful creatures they were!--and so kind
and beautiful--always sending out such colors and such scents--red
scent, and white scent, and yellow scent--for the other creatures!
The one that was invisible and everywhere took such a quantity
of their scents, and carried it away! yet they did not seem to
mind. It was their talk, to show they were alive, and not painted
like those on the walls of her rooms, and on the carpets.
She wandered along down the garden, until she reached the river.
Unable then to get any further--for she was a little afraid, and
justly, of the swift watery serpent--she dropped on the grassy
bank, dipped her feet in the water, and felt it running and pushing
against them. For a long time she sat thus, and her bliss seemed
complete, as she gazed at the river and watched the broken picture
of the great lamp overhead, moving up one side of the roof, to
go down the other.
Chapter Thirteen
Something Quite New
A beautiful moth brushed across the great blue eyes of Nycteris.
She sprang to her feet to follow it--not in the spirit of the
hunter, but of the lover. Her heart--like every heart, if only
its fallen sides were cleared away--was an inexhaustible fountain
of love: she loved everything she saw. But as she followed the
moth, she caught sight of something lying on the bank of the river,
and not yet having learned to be afraid of anything, ran straight
to see what it was. Reaching it, she stood amazed. Another girl
like herself! But what a strange-looking girl!-- so curiously
dressed too!--and not able to move! Was she dead? Filled suddenly
with pity, she sat down, lifted Photogen's head, laid it on her
lap, and began stroking his face. Her warm hands brought him to
himself. He opened his black eyes, out of which had gone all the
fire, and looked up with a strange sound of fear, half moan, half
gasp. But when he saw her face, he drew a deep breath and lay
motionless--gazing at her: those blue marvels above him, like
a better sky, seemed to side with courage and assuage his terror.
At length, in a trembling, awed voice, and a half whisper, he
said, "Who are you?"
"I am Nycteris," she answered
"You are a creature of the darkness, and love the night," he said,
his fear beginning to move again.
"I may be a creature of the darkness," she replied. "I hardly
know what you mean. But I do not love the night. I love the day--with
all my heart; and I sleep all the night long."
"How can that be?" said Photogen, rising on his elbow, but dropping
his head on her lap again the moment he saw the moon; "--how can
it be," he repeated, "when I see your eyes there-- wide awake?"
She only smiled and stroked him, for she did not understand him,
and thought he did not know what he was saying.
"Was it a dream then?" resumed Photogen, rubbing his eyes. But
with that his memory came clear, and he shuddered and cried, "Oh,
horrible! horrible! to be turned all at once into a coward! a
shameful, contemptible, disgraceful coward! I am ashamed-- ashamed--and
so frightened! It is all so frightful!"
"What is so frightful?" asked Nycteris, with a smile like that
of a mother to her child waked from a bad dream.
"All, all," he answered; "all this darkness and the roaring."
"My dear," said Nycteris, "there is no roaring. How sensitive
you must be! What you hear is only the walking of the water, and
the running about of the sweetest of all the creatures. She is
invisible, and I call her Everywhere, for she goes through all
the other creatures, and comforts them. Now she is amusing herself,
and them too, with shaking them and kissing them, and blowing
in their faces. Listen: do you call that roaring? You should hear
her when she is rather angry though! I don't know why, but she
is sometimes, and then she does roar a little."
"It is so horribly dark!" said Photogen, who, listening while
she spoke, had satisfied himself that there was no roaring.
"Dark!" she echoed. "You should be in my room when an earthquake
has killed my lamp. I do not understand. How _can_ you call this
dark? Let me see: yes, you have eyes, and big ones, bigger than
Madame Watho's or Falca's not so big as mine, I fancy--only I
never saw mine. But then--oh, yes!--I know now what is the matter!
You can't see with them, because they are so black. Darkness can't
see, of course. Never mind: I will be your eyes, and teach you
to see. Look here--at these lovely white things in the grass,
with red sharp points all folded together into one. Oh, I love
them so! I could sit looking at them all day, the darlings!"
Photogen looked close at the flowers, and thought he had seen
something like them before, but could not make them out. As Nycteris
had never seen an open daisy, so had he never seen a closed one.
Thus instinctively Nycteris tried to turn him away from his fear;
and the beautiful creature's strange lovely talk helped not a
little to make him forget it.
"You call it dark!" she said again, as if she could not get rid
of the absurdity of the idea; "why, I could count every blade
of the green hair--I suppose it is what the books call grass--within
two yards of me! And just look at the great lamp! It is brighter
than usual today, and I can't think why you should be frightened,
or call it dark!"
As she spoke, she went on stroking his cheeks and hair, and trying
to comfort him. But oh how miserable he was! and how plainly he
looked it! He was on the point of saying that her great lamp was
dreadful to him, looking like a witch, walking in the sleep of
death; but he was not so ignorant as Nycteris, and knew even in
the moonlight that she was a woman, though he had never seen one
so young or so lovely before; and while she comforted his fear,
her presence made him the more ashamed of it. Besides, not knowing
her nature, he might annoy her, and make her leave him to his
misery. He lay still therefore, hardly daring to move: all the
little life he had seemed to come from her, and if he were to
move, she might move: and if she were to leave him, he must weep
like a child.
"How did you come here?" asked Nycteris, taking his face between
her hands.
"Down the hill," he answered.
"Where do you sleep?" she asked.
He signed in the direction of the house. She gave a little laugh
of delight.
"When you have learned not to be frightened, you will always be
wanting to come out with me," she said.
She thought with herself she would ask her presently, when she
had come to herself a little, how she had made her escape, for
she must, of course, like herself, have got out of a cave, in
which Watho and Falca had been keeping her.
"Look at the lovely colors," she went on, pointing to a rose bush,
on which Photogen could not see a single flower. "They are far
more beautiful--are they not?--than any of the colors upon your
walls. And then they are alive, and smell so sweet!"
He wished she would not make him keep opening his eyes to look
at things he could not see; and every other moment would start
and grasp tight hold of her, as some fresh pang of terror shot
into him.
"Come, come, dear!" said Nycteris, "you must not go on this way.
You must be a brave girl, and--"
"A girl!" shouted Photogen, and started to his feet in wrath.
"If you were a man, I should kill you."
"A man?" repeated Nycteris. "What is that? How could I be that?
We are both girls--are we not?"
"No, I am not a girl," he answered; "--although," he added, changing
his tone, and casting himself on the ground at her feet, "I have
given you too good reason to call me one."
"Oh, I see!" returned Nycteris. "No, of course!--you can't be
a girl: girls are not afraid--without reason. I understand now:
it is because you are not a girl that you are so frightened."
Photogen twisted and writhed upon the grass.
"No, it is not," he said sulkily; "it is this horrible darkness
that creeps into me, goes all through me, into the very marrow
of my bones--that is what makes me behave like a girl. If only
the sun would rise!"
"The sun! what is it?" cried Nycteris, now in her turn conceiving
a vague fear.
Then Photogen broke into a rhapsody, in which he vainly sought
to forget his.
"It is the soul, the life, the heart, the glory of the universe,"
he said. "The worlds dance like motes in his beams. The heart
of man is strong and brave in his light, and when it departs his
courage grows from him--goes with the sun, and he becomes such
as you see me now."
"Then that is not the sun?" said Nycteris, thoughtfully, pointing
up to the moon.
"That!" cried Photogen, with utter scorn. "I know nothing about
_that_, except that it is ugly and horrible. At best it can be
only the ghost of a dead sun. Yes, that is it! That is what makes
it look so frightful."
"No," said Nycteris, after a long, thoughtful pause; "you must
be wrong there. I think the sun is the ghost of a dead moon, and
that is how he is so much more splendid as you say.--Is there,
then, another big room, where the sun lives in the roof?"
"I do not know what you mean," replied Photogen. "But you mean
to be kind, I know, though you should not call a poor fellow in
the dark a girl. If you will let me lie here, with my head in
your lap, I should like to sleep. Will you watch me, and take
care of me?"
"Yes, that I will," answered Nycteris, forgetting all her own
danger.
So Photogen fell asleep
Chapter Fourteen
The Sun
HERE Nycteris sat, and there the youth lay all night long, in
the heart of the great cone-shadow of the earth, like two pharaohs
in one pyramid. Photogen slept, and slept; and Nycteris sat motionless
lest she should wake him, and so betray him to his fear.
The moon rode high in the blue eternity; it was a very triumph
of glorious night; the river ran babble-murmuring in deep soft
syllables; the fountain kept rushing moonward, and blossoming
momently to a great silvery flower, whose petals were forever
falling like snow, but with a continuous musical clash, into the
bed of its exhaustion beneath; the wind woke, took a run among
the trees, went to sleep, and woke again; the daisies slept on
their feet at hers, but she did not know they slept; the roses
might well seem awake, for their scent filled the air, but in
truth they slept also, and the odor was that of their dreams;
the oranges hung like gold lamps in the trees, and their silvery
flowers were the souls of their yet unembodied children; the scent
of the acacia blooms filled the air like the very odor of the
moon herself.
At last, unused to the living air, and weary with sitting so still
and so long, Nycteris grew drowsy. The air began to grow cool.
It was getting near the time when she too was accustomed to sleep.
She closed her eyes just a moment, and nodded--opened them suddenly
wide, for she had promised to watch.
In that moment a change had come. The moon had got round and was
fronting her from the west, and she saw that her face was altered,
that she had grown pale, as if she too were wan with fear, and
from her lofty place espied a coming terror. The light seemed
to be dissolving out of her; she was dying--she was going out!
And yet everything around looked strangely clear--clearer than
ever she had seen anything before; how could the lamp be shedding
more light when she herself had less? Ah, that was just it! See
how faint she looked! It was because the light was forsaking her,
and spreading itself over the room, that she grew so thin and
pale! She was giving up everything! She was melting away from
the roof like a bit of sugar in water.
Nycteris was fast growing afraid, and sought refuge with the face
upon her lap. How beautiful the creature was!--what to call it
she could not think, for it had been angry when she called it
what Watho called her. And, wonder upon wonders! now, even in
the cold change that was passing upon the great room, the color
as of a red rose was rising in the wan cheek. What beautiful yellow
hair it was that spread over her lap! What great huge breaths
the creature took! And what were those curious things it carried?
She had seen them on her walls, she was sure.
Thus she talked to herself while the lamp grew paler and paler,
and everything kept growing yet clearer. What could it mean? The
lamp was dying--going out into the other place of which the creature
in her lap had spoken, to be a sun! But why were the things growing
clearer before it was yet a sun? That was the point. Was it her
growing into a sun that did it? Yes! yes! it was coming death!
She knew it, for it was coming upon her also! She felt it coming!
What was she about to grow into? Something beautiful, like the
creature in her lap? It might be! Anyhow, it must be death; for
all her strength was going out of her, while all around her was
growing so light she could not bear it! She must be blind soon!
Would she be blind or dead first?
For the sun was rushing up behind her. Photogen woke, lifted his
head from her lap, and sprang to his feet. His face was one radiant
smile. His heart was full of daring--that of the hunter who will
creep into the tiger's den. Nycteris gave a cry, covered her face
with her hands, and pressed her eyelids close. Then blindly she
stretched out her arms to Photogen, crying, "Oh, I am so frightened!
What is this? It must be death! I don't wish to die yet. I love
this room and the old lamp. I do not want the other place. This
is terrible. I want to hide. I want to get into the sweet, soft,
dark hands of all the other creatures. Ah me! ah me!"
"What is the matter with you, girl?" said Photogen, with the arrogance
of all male creatures until they have been taught by the other
kind. He stood looking down upon her over his bow, of which he
was examining the string. "There is no fear of anything now, child!
It is day. The sun is all but up. Look! he will be above the brow
of yon hill in one moment more! Good-bye. Thank you for my night's
lodging. I'm off. Don't be a goose. If ever I can do anything
for you--and all that, you know!"
"Don't leave me; oh, don't leave me!" cried Nycteris. "I am dying!
I am dying! I can't move. The light sucks all the strength out
of me. And oh, I am so frightened!"
But already Photogen had splashed through the river, holding high
his bow that it might not get wet. He rushed across the level
and strained up the opposing hill. Hearing no answer, Nycteris
removed her hands. Photogen had reached the top, and the same
moment the sun rays alighted upon him; the glory of the king of
day crowded blazing upon the golden-haired youth. Radiant as Apollo,
he stood in mighty strength, a flashing shape in the midst of
flame. He fitted a glowing arrow to a gleaming bow. The arrow
parted with a keen musical twang of the bowstring, and Photogen,
darting after it, vanished with a shout. Up shot Apollo himself,
and from his quiver scattered astonishment and exultation. But
the brain of poor Nycteris was pierced through and through. She
fell down in utter darkness. All around her was a flaming furnace.
In despair and feebleness and agony, she crept back, feeling her
way with doubt and difficulty and enforced persistence to her
cell. When at last the friendly darkness of her chamber folded
her about with its cooling and consoling arms, she threw herself
on her bed and fell fast asleep. And there she slept on, one alive
in a tomb, while Photogen, above in the sun-glory, pursued the
buffaloes on the lofty plain, thinking not once of her where she
lay dark and forsaken, whose presence had been his refuge, her
eyes and her hands his guardians through the night. He was in
his glory and his pride; and the darkness and its disgrace had
vanished for a time.
Chapter Fifteen
The Coward Hero
But no sooner had the sun reached the noonstead, than Photogen
began to remember the past night in the shadow of that which was
at hand, and to remember it with shame. He had proved himself--
and not to himself only, but to a girl as well--a coward!-- one
bold in the daylight, while there was nothing to fear, but trembling
like any slave when the night arrived. There was, there must be,
something unfair in it! A spell had been cast upon him! He had
eaten, he had drunk something that did not agree with courage!
In any case he had been taken unprepared! How was he to know what
the going down of the sun would be like? It was no wonder he should
have been surprised into terror, seeing it was what it was--in
its very nature so terrible! Also, one could not see where danger
might be coming from! You might be torn in pieces, carried off,
or swallowed up, without even seeing where to strike a blow! Every
possible excuse he caught at, eager as a self-lover to lighten
his self-contempt. That day he astonished the huntsmen--terrified
them with his reckless daring--all to prove to himself he was
no coward. But nothing eased his shame. One thing only had hope
in it--the resolve to encounter the dark in solemn earnest, now
that he knew something of what it was. It was nobler to meet a
recognized danger than to rush contemptuously into what seemed
nothing--nobler still to encounter a nameless horror. He could
conquer fear and wipe out disgrace together. For a marksman and
swordsman like him, he said, one with his strength and courage,
there was but danger. Defeat there was not. He knew the darkness
now, and when it came he would meet it as fearless and cool as
now he felt himself. And again he said, "We shall see!"
He stood under the boughs of a great beech as the sun was going
down, far away over the jagged hills: before it was half down,
he was trembling like one of the leaves behind him in the first
sigh of the night wind. The moment the last of the glowing disk
vanished, he bounded away in terror to gain the valley, and his
fear grew as he ran. Down the side of the hill, an abject creature,
he went bounding and rolling and running; fell rather than plunged
into the river, and came to himself, as before, lying on the grassy
bank in the garden.
But when he opened his eyes, there were no girl-eyes looking down
into his; there were only the stars in the waste of the sunless
Night--the awful all-enemy he had again dared, but could not encounter.
Perhaps the girl was not yet come out of the water! He would try
to sleep, for he dared not move, and perhaps when he woke he would
find his head on her lap, and the beautiful dark face, with its
deep blue eyes, bending over him. But when he woke he found his
head on the grass, and although he sprang up with all his courage,
such as it was, restored, he did not set out for the chase with
such an _lan_ as the day before; and, despite the sun-glory in
his heart and veins, his hunting was this day less eager; he ate
little, and from the first was thoughtful even to sadness. A second
time he was defeated and disgraced! Was his courage nothing more
than the play of the sunlight on his brain? Was he a mere ball
tossed between the light and the dark? Then what a poor contemptible
creature he was! But a third chance lay before him. If he failed
the third time, he dared not foreshadow what he must then think
of himself! It was bad enough now--but then!
Alas! it went no better. The moment the sun was down, he fled
as if from a legion of devils.
Seven times in all, he tried to face the coming night in the strength
of the past day, and seven times he failed--failed with such increase
of failure, with such a growing sense of ignominy, overwhelming
at length all the sunny hours and joining night to night, that,
what with misery, self-accusation, and loss of confidence, his
daylight courage too began to fade, and at length, from exhaustion,
from getting wet, and then lying out of doors all night, and night
after night--worst of all, from the consuming of the deathly fear,
and the shame of shame, his sleep forsook him, and on the seventh
morning, instead of going to the hunt, he crawled into the castle
and went to bed. The grand health, over which the witch had taken
such pains, had yielded, and in an hour or two he was moaning
and crying out in delirium.
Chapter Sixteen
An Evil Nurse
WATHO was herself ill, as I have said, and was the worse tempered;
and besides, it is a peculiarity of witches that what works in
others to sympathy works in them to repulsion. Also, Watho had
a poor, helpless, rudimentary spleen of a conscience left, just
enough to make her uncomfortable, and therefore more wicked. So,
when she heard that Photogen was ill, she was angry. Ill, indeed!
after all she had done to saturate him with the life of the system,
with the solar might itself? He was a wretched failure, the boy!
And because he was _her_ failure, she was annoyed with him, began
to dislike him, grew to hate him. She looked on him as a painter
might upon a picture, or a poet upon a poem, which he had only
succeeded in getting into an irrecoverable mess. In the hearts
of witches, love and hate lie close together, and often tumble
over each other. And whether it was that her failure with Photogen
foiled also her plans in regard to Nycteris, or that her illness
made her yet more of a devil's wife, certainly Watho now got sick
of the girl too, and hated to know her about the castle.
She was not too ill, however, to go to poor Photogen's room and
torment him. She told him she hated him like a serpent, and hissed
like one as she said it, looking very sharp in the nose and chin,
and flat in the forehead. Photogen thought she meant to kill him,
and hardly ventured to take anything brought him. She ordered
every ray of light to be shut out of his room; but by means of
this he got a little used to the darkness. She would take one
of his arrows, and now tickle him with the feather end of it,
now prick him with the point till the blood ran down. What she
meant finally I cannot tell, but she brought Photogen speedily
to the determination of making his escape from the castle: what
he should do then he would think afterwards. Who could tell but
he might find his mother somewhere beyond the forest! If it were
not for the broad patches of darkness that divided day from day,
he would fear nothing!
But now, as he lay helpless in the dark, ever and anon would come
dawning through it the face of the lovely creature who on that
first awful night nursed him so sweetly: was he never to see her
again? If she was, as he had concluded, the nymph of the river,
why had she not reappeared? She might have taught him not to fear
the night, for plainly she had no fear of it herself! But then,
when the day came, she did seem frightened--why was that, seeing
there was nothing to be afraid of then? Perhaps one so much at
home in the darkness was correspondingly afraid of the light!
Then his selfish joy at the rising of the sun, blinding him to
her condition, had made him behave to her, in ill return for her
kindness, as cruelly as Watho behaved to him! How sweet and dear
and lovely she was! If there were wild beasts that came out only
at night, and were afraid of the light, why should there not be
girls too, made the same way--who could not endure the light,
as he could not bear the darkness? If only he could find her again!
Ah, how differently he would behave to her! But alas! perhaps
the sun had killed her--melted her-- burned her up--dried her
up--that was it, if she was a nymph of the river!
Chapter Seventeen
Watho's Wolf
FROM that dreadful morning Nycteris had never got to be herself
again. The sudden light had been almost death to her: and now
she lay in the dark with the memory of a terrific sharpness--
a something she dared scarcely recall, lest the very thought of
it should sting her beyond endurance. But this was as nothing
to the pain which the recollection of the rudeness of the shining
creature whom she had nursed through his fear caused her; for
the moment his suffering passed over to her, and he was free,
the first use he made of his returning strength had been to scorn
her! She wondered and wondered; it was all beyond her comprehension.
Before long, Watho was plotting evil against her. The witch was
like a sick child weary of his toy: she would pull her to pieces
and see how she liked it. She would set her in the sun and see
her die, like a jelly from the salt ocean cast out on a hot rock.
It would be a sight to soothe her wolf-pain. One day, therefore,
a little before noon, while Nycteris was in her deepest sleep,
she had a darkened litter brought to the door, and in that she
made two of her men carry her to the plain above. There they took
her out, laid her on the grass, and left her.
Watho watched it all from the top of her high tower, through her
telescope; and scarcely was Nycteris left, when she saw her sit
up, and the same moment cast herself down again with her face
to the ground.
"She'll have a sunstroke," said Watho, "and that'll be the end
of her."
Presently, tormented by a fly, a huge-humped buffalo, with great
shaggy mane, came galloping along, straight for where she lay.
At the sight of the thing on the grass, he started, swerved yards
aside, stopped dead, and then came slowly up, looking malicious.
Nycteris lay quite still and never even saw the animal.
"Now she'll be trodden to death!" said Watho. "That's the way
those creatures do."
When the buffalo reached her, he sniffed at her all over and went
away; then came back and sniffed again: then all at once went
off as if a demon had him by the tail.
Next came a gnu, a more dangerous animal still, and did much the
same; then a gaunt wild boar. But no creature hurt her, and Watho
was angry with the whole creation.
At length, in the shade of her hair, the blue eyes of Nycteris
began to come to themselves a little, and the first thing they
saw was a comfort. I have told already how she knew the night
daisies, each a sharp-pointed little cone with a red tip; and
once she had parted the rays of one of them, with trembling fingers,
for she was afraid she was dreadfully rude, and perhaps was hurting
it; but she did want, she said to herself, to see what secret
it carried so carefully hidden; and she found its golden heart.
But now, right under her eyes, inside the veil of her hair, in
the sweet twilight of whose blackness she could see it perfectly,
stood a daisy with its red tip opened wide into a carmine ring,
displaying its heart of gold on a platter of silver. She did not
at first recognize it as one of those cones come awake, but a
moment's notice revealed what it was. Who then could have been
so cruel to the lovely little creature as to force it open like
that, and spread it heart-bare to the terrible death-lamp? Whoever
it was, it must be the same that had thrown her out there to be
burned to death in its fire. But she had her hair, and could hang
her head, and make a small sweet night of her own about her! She
tried to bend the daisy down and away from the sun, and to make
its petals hang about it like her hair, but she could not. Alas!
it was burned and dead already! She did not know that it could
not yield to her gentle force because it was drinking life, with
all the eageress of life, from what she called the death-lamp.
Oh, how the lamp burned her!
But she went on thinking--she did not know how; and by and by
began to reflect that, as there was no roof to the room except
that in which the great fire went rolling about, the little Red-tip
must have seen the lamp a thousand times, and must know it quite
well! and it had not killed it! Nay, thinking about farther, she
began to ask the question whether this, in which she now saw it,
might not be its more perfect condition. For not only now did
the whole seem perfect, as indeed it did before, but every part
showed its own individual perfection as well, which perfection
made it capable of combining with the rest into the higher perfection
of a whole. The flower was a lamp itself! The golden heart was
the light, and the silver border was the alabaster globe, skillfully
broken, and spread wide to let out the glory. Yes: the radiant
shape was plainly its perfection! If, then, it was the lamp which
had opened it into that shape, the lamp could not be unfriendly
to it, but must be of its own kind, seeing it made it perfect!
And again, when she thought of it, there was clearly no little
resemblance between them. What if the flower then was the little
great-grandchild of the lamp and he was loving it all the time?
And what if the lamp did not mean to hurt her, only could not
help it? The red tips looked as if the flower had some time or
other been hurt: what if the lamp was making the best it could
of her--opening her out somehow like the flower? She would bear
it patiently, and see. But how coarse the color of the grass was!
Perhaps, however, her eyes not being made for the bright lamp,
she did not see them as they were! Then she remembered how different
were the eyes of the creature that was not a girl and was afraid
of the darkness! Ah, if the darkness would only come again, all
arms, friendly and soft everywhere about her! She would wait and
wait, and bear, and be patient.
She lay so still that Watho did not doubt she had fainted. She
was pretty sure she would be dead before the night came to revive
her.
Chapter Eighteen
Refuge
FIXING her telescope on the motionless form, that she might see
it at once when the morning came, Watho went down from the tower
to Photogen's room. He was much better by this time, and before
she left him, he had resolved to leave the castle that very night.
The darkness was terrible indeed, but Watho was worse than even
the darkness, and he could not escape in the day. As soon, therefore,
as the house seemed still, he tightened his belt, hung to it his
hunting knife, put a flask of wine and some bread in his pocket,
and took his bow and arrows. He got from the house and made his
way at once up to the plain. But what with his illness, the terrors
of the night, and his dread of the wild beasts, when he got to
the level he could not walk a step further, and sat down, thinking
it better to die than to live. In spite of his fears, however,
sleep contrived to overcome him, and he fell at full length on
the soft grass.
He had not slept long when he woke with such a strange sense of
comfort and security that he thought the dawn at last must have
arrived. But it was dark night about him. And the sky--no, it
was not the sky, but the blue eyes of his naiad looking down upon
him! Once more he lay with his head in her lap, and all was well,
for plainly the girl feared the darkness as little as he the day.
"Thank you," he said. "You are like live armor to my heart; you
keep the fear off me. I have been very ill since then. Did you
come up out of the river when you saw me cross?"
"I don't live in the water," she answered. "I live under the pale
lamp, and I die under the bright one."
"Ah, yes! I understand now," he returned. "I would not have behaved
as I did last time if I had understood; but I thought you were
mocking me; and I am so made that I cannot help being frightened
at the darkness. I beg your pardon for leaving you as I did, for,
as I say, I did not understand. Now I believe you were really
frightened. Were you not?"
"I was, indeed," answered Nycteris, "and shall be again. But why
you should be, I cannot in the least understand. You must know
how gentle and sweet the darkness is, how kind and friendly, how
soft and velvety! It holds you to its bosom and loves you. A little
while ago, I lay faint and dying under your hot lamp.-- What is
it you call it?"
"The sun," murmured Photogen. "How I wish he would make haste!"
"Ah! do not wish that. Do not, for my sake, hurry him. I can take
care of you from the darkness, but I have no one to take care
of me from the light.--As I was telling you, I lay dying in the
sun. All at once I drew a deep breath. A cool wind came and ran
over my face. I looked up. The torture was gone, for the death-lamp
itself was gone. I hope he does not die and grow brighter yet.
My terrible headache was all gone, and my sight was come back.
I felt as if I were new made. But I did not get up at once, for
I was tired still. The grass grew cool about me and turned soft
in color. Something wet came upon it, and it was now so pleasant
to my feet that I rose and ran about. And when I had been running
about a long time, all at once I found you lying, just as I had
been Iying a little while before. So I sat down beside you to
take care of you, till your life--and my death-- should come again."
"How good you are, you beautiful creature!--Why, you forgave me
before ever I asked you!" cried Photogen.
Thus they fell a-talking, and he told her what he knew of his
history, and she told him what she knew of hers, and they agreed
they must get away from Watho as far as ever they could.
"And we must set out at once," said Nycteris.
"The moment the morning comes," returned Photogen.
"We must not wait for the morning," said Nycteris, "for then I
shall not be able to move, and what would you do the next night?
Besides, Watho sees best in the daytime. Indeed, you must come
now, Photogen.--You must."
"I cannot; I dare not," said Photogen. "I cannot move. If I but
lift my head from your lap, the very sickness of terror seizes
me."
"I shall be with you," said Nycteris, soothingly. "I will take
care of you till your dreadful sun comes, and then you may leave
me, and go away as fast as you can. Only please put me in a dark
place first, if there is one to be found."
"I will never leave you again, Nycteris," cried Photogen. "Only
wait till the sun comes, and brings me back my strength, and we
will go together, and never, never part anymore."
"No, no," persisted Nycteris; "we must go now. And you must learn
to be strong in the dark as well as in the day, else you will
always be only half brave. I have begun already--not to fight
your sun, but to try to get at peace with him, and understand
what he really is, and what he means with me--whether to hurt
me or to make the best of me. You must do the same with my darkness."
"But you don't know what mad animals there are away there towards
the south," said Photogen. "They have huge green eyes, and they
would eat you up like a bit of celery, you beautiful creature!"
"Come, come! you must," said Nycteris, "or I shall have to pretend
to leave you, to make you come. I have seen the green eyes you
speak of, and I will take care of you from them."
"You! How can you do that? If it were day now, I could take care
of you from the worst of them. But as it is, I can't even see
them for this abominable darkness. I could not see your lovely
eyes but for the light that is in them; that lets me see straight
into heaven through them. They are windows into the very heaven
beyond the sky. I believe they are the very place where the stars
are made."
"You come then, or I shall shut them," said Nycteris, "and you
shan't see them anymore till you are good. Come. If you can't
see the wild beasts, I can."
"You can! and you ask me to come!" cried Photogen.
"Yes," answered Nycteris. "And more than that, I see them long
before they can see me, so that I am able to take care of you."
"But how?" persisted Photogen. "You can't shoot with bow and arrow,
or stab with a hunting knife."
"No, but I can keep out of the way of them all. Why, just when
I found you, I was having a game with two or three of them at
once. I see, and scent them too, long before they are near me--
long before they can see or scent me."
"You don't see or scent any now, do you?" said Photogen uneasily,
rising on his elbow.
"No--none at present. I will look," replied Nycteris, and sprang
to her feet.
"Oh, oh! do not leave me--not for a moment," cried Photogen, straining
his eyes to keep her face in sight through the darkness.
"Be quiet, or they will hear you," she returned. "The wind is
from the south, and they cannot scent us. I have found out all
about that. Ever since the dear dark came, I have been amusing
myself with them, getting every now and then just into the edge
of the wind, and letting one have a sniff of me."
"Oh, horrible!" cried Photogen. "I hope you will not insist on
doing so anymore. What was the consequence?"
"Always, the very instant, he turned with dashing eyes, and bounded
towards me--only he could not see me, you must remember. But my
eyes being so much better than his, I could see him perfectly
well, and would run away around him until I scented him, and then
I knew he could not find me anyhow. If the wind were to turn,
and run the other way now, there might be a whole army of them
down upon us, leaving no room to keep out of their way. You had
better come."
She took him by the hand. He yielded and rose, and she led him
away. But his steps were feeble, and as the night went on, he
seemed more and more ready to sink.
"Oh dear! I am so tired! and so frightened!" he would say.
"Lean on me," Nycteris would return, putting her arm around him,
or patting his cheek. "Take a few steps more. Every step away
from the castle is clear gain. Lean harder on me. I am quite strong
and well now."
So they went on. The piercing night-eyes of Nycteris descried
not a few pairs of green ones gleaming like holes in the darkness,
and many a round she made to keep far out of their way; but she
never said to Photogen she saw them. Carefully she kept him off
the uneven places, and on the softest and smoothest of the grass,
talking to him gently all the way as they went--of the lovely
flowers and the stars--how comfortable the flowers looked, down
in their green beds, and how happy the stars up in their blue
beds!
When the morning began to come, he began to grow better, but was
dreadfully tired with walking instead of sleeping, especially
after being so long ill. Nycteris too, what with supporting him,
what with growing fear of the light which was beginning to ooze
out of the east, was very tired. At length, both equally exhausted,
neither was able to help the other. As if by consent they stopped.
Embracing each the other, they stood in the midst of the wide
grassy land, neither of them able to move a step, each supported
only by the leaning weakness of the other, each ready to fall
if the other should move. But while the one grew weaker still,
the other had begun to grow stronger. When the tide of the night
began to ebb, the tide of the day began to flow; and now the sun
was rushing to the horizon, borne upon its foaming billows. And
ever as he came, Photogen revived. At last the sun shot up into
the air, like a bird from the hand of the Father of Lights. Nycteris
gave a cry of pain and hid her face in her hands.
"Oh me!" she sighed; "I am so frightened! The terrible light stings
so!"
But the same instant, through her blindness, she heard Photogen
give a low exultant laugh, and the next felt herself caught up;
she who all night long had tended and protected him like a child
was now in his arms, borne along like a baby, with her head lying
on his shoulder. But she was the greater, for suffering more,
she feared nothing.
Chapter Nineteen
The Werewolf
AT the very moment when Photogen caught up Nycteris, the telescope
of Watho was angrily sweeping the tableland. She swung it from
her in rage and, running to her room, shut herself up. There she
anointed herself from top to toe with a certain ointment; shook
down her long red hair, and tied it around her waist; then began
to dance, whirling around and around faster and faster, growing
angrier and angrier, until she was foaming at the mouth with fury.
When Falca went looking for her, she could not find her anywhere.
As the sun rose, the wind slowly changed and went around, until
it blew straight from the north. Photogen and Nycteris were drawing
near the edge of the forest, Photogen still carrying Nycteris,
when she moved a little on his shoulder uneasily and murmured
in his ear.
"I smell a wild beast--that way, the way the wind is coming."
Photogen turned back towards the castle, and saw a dark speck
on the plain. As he looked, it grew larger: it was coming across
the grass with the speed of the wind. It came nearer and nearer.
It looked long and low, but that might be because it was running
at a great stretch. He set Nycteris down under a tree, in the
black shadow of its bole, strung his bow, and picked out his heaviest,
longest, sharpest arrow. Just as he set the notch on the string,
he saw that the creature was a tremendous wolf, rushing straight
at him. He loosened his knife in its sheath, drew another arrow
halfway from the quiver, lest the first should fail, and took
his aim-at a good distance, to leave time for a second chance.
He shot. The arrow rose, flew straight, descended, struck the
beast, and started again into the air, doubled like a letter V.
Quickly Photogen snatched the other, shot, cast his bow from him,
and drew his knife. But the arrow was in the brute's chest, up
to the feather; it tumbled heels over head with a great thud of
its back on the earth, gave a groan, made a struggle or two, and
lay stretched out motionless.
"I've killed it, Nycteris," cried Photogen. "It is a great red
wolf."
"Oh, thank you!" answered Nycteris feebly from behind the tree.
"I was sure you would. I was not a bit afraid."
Photogen went up to the wolf. It _was_ a monster! But he was vexed
that his first arrow had behaved so badly, and was the less willing
to lose the one that had done him such good service: with a long
and a strong pull, he drew it from the brute's chest. Could he
believe his eyes? There lay--no wolf, but Watho, with her hair
tied around her waist! The foolish witch had made herself invulnerable,
as she supposed, but had forgotten that, to torment Photogen therewith,
she had handled one of his arrows. He ran back to Nycteris and
told her.
She shuddered and wept, and would not look.
Chapter Twenty
All Is Well
THERE was now no occasion to fly a step farther. Neither of them
feared anyone but Watho. They left her there and went back. A
great cloud came over the sun, and rain began to fall heavily,
and Nycteris was much refreshed, grew able to see a little, and
with Photogen's help walked gently over the cool wet grass.
They had not gone far before they met Fargu and the other huntsmen.
Photogen told them he had killed a great red wolf, and it was
Madame Watho. The huntsmen looked grave, but gladness shone through.
"Then," said Fargu, "I will go and bury my mistress."
But when they reached the place, they found she was already buried--in
the maws of sundry birds and beasts which had made their breakfast
of her.
Then Fargu, overtaking them, would, very wisely, have Photogen
go to the king and tell him the whole story. But Photogen, yet
wiser than Fargu, would not set out until he had married Nycteris;
"for then," he said, "the king himself can't part us; and if ever
two people couldn't do the one without the other, those two are
Nycteris and I. She has got to teach me to be a brave man in the
dark, and I have got to look after her until she can bear the
heat of the sun, and he helps her to see, instead of blinding
her."
They were married that very day. And the next day they went together
to the king and told him the whole story. But whom should they
find at the court but the father and mother of Photogen, both
in high favor with the king and queen. Aurora nearly died with
joy, and told them all how Watho had lied and made her believe
her child was dead.
No one knew anything of the father or mother of Nycteris; but
when Aurora saw in the lovely girl her own azure eyes shining
through night and its clouds, it made her think strange things,
and wonder how even the wicked themselves may be a link to join
together the good. Through Watho, the mothers, who had never seen
each other, had changed eyes in their children.
The king gave them the castle and lands of Watho, and there they
lived and taught each other for many years that were not long.
But hardly had one of them passed, before Nycteris had come to
love the day best, because it was the clothing and crown of Photogen,
and she saw that the day was greater than the night, and the sun
more lordly than the moon; and Photogen had come to love the night
best, because it was the mother and home of Nycteris.
"But who knows," Nycteris would say to Photogen, "that when we
go out, we shall not go into a day as much greater than your day
as your day is greater than my night?"
THE END