( PDF ) The Day Boy and the Night Girl

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The Day Boy and the Night Girl

by George MacDonald

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.

I. 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.

II. Aurora

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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

narrow 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.

III. 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 the 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

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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.

IV. 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.

V. 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.

VI. 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.

VII. 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.

VIII. 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.

IX. 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.

X. 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!

XI. 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.

XII. 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 excess 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.

XIII. 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 gows 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

XIV. 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.

XV. 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.

XVI. 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!

XVII. 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.

XVIII. 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.

XIX. 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.

XX. 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?"

[End of "The Day Boy and the Night Girl", by George MacDonald].

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