CHAPTER VIII. THE LAMP.
Watho having given orders, took it for granted they were obeyed, andthat Falca was all night long with Nycteris, whose day it was. ButFalca could not get into the habit of sleeping through the day, andwould often leave her alone half the night. Then it seemed to Nycteristhat the white lamp was watching over her. As it was never permittedto go out--while she was awake at least--Nycteris, except by shuttingher eyes, knew less about darkness than she did about light. Also, thelamp being fixed high overhead, and in the centre of everything, shedid not know much about shadows either. The few there were fell almostentirely 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-offrumbling: she had never before heard a sound of which she did not knowthe origin, and here therefore was a new sign of something beyondthese chambers. Then came a trembling, then a shaking; the lampdropped from the ceiling to the floor with a great crash, and she feltas if both her eyes were hard shut and both her hands over them. Sheconcluded that it was the darkness that had made the rumbling and theshaking, and rushing into the room, had thrown down the lamp. She sattrembling. The noise and the shaking ceased, but the light did notreturn. The darkness had eaten it up!
Her lamp gone, the desire at once awoke to get out of her prison. Shescarcely knew what _out_ meant; out of one room into another, wherethere was not even a dividing door, only an open arch, was all sheknew of the world. But suddenly she remembered that she had heardFalca 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 Falcawent, and like her it would come again. But she could not wait. Thedesire to go out grew irresistible. She must follow her beautifullamp! She must find it! She must see what it was about!
Now there was a curtain covering a recess in the wall, where some ofher toys and gymnastic things were kept; and from behind that curtainWatho and Falca always appeared, and behind it they vanished. How theycame out of solid wall, she had not an idea, all up to the wall wasopen space, and all beyond it seemed wall; but clearly the first andonly thing she could do, was to feel her way behind the curtain. Itwas 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 werenot of the smallest use to her. As she went she trod upon a piece ofthe broken lamp. She had never worn shoes or stockings, and thefragment, though, being of soft alabaster, it did not cut, yet hurther foot. She did not know what it was, but as it had not been therebefore the darkness came, she suspected that it had to do with thelamp. She kneeled therefore, and searched with her hands, and bringingtwo large pieces together, recognized the shape of the lamp. Therewithit flashed upon her that the lamp was dead, that this brokenness wasthe death of which she had read without understanding, that thedarkness had killed the lamp. What then could Falca have meant whenshe 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 forthe shape! No, it was not the lamp any more now it was dead, for allthat made it a lamp was gone, namely, the bright shining of it. Thenit must be the shine, the light, that had gone out! That must be whatFalca 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 thewalls behind the curtain, half expecting them to go into it, as shesupposed Watho and Falca did. But the wall repelled her withinexorable 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 samespot the broken alabaster had already hurt, she fell forward with heroutstretched hands against the wall. Something gave way, and shetumbled out of the cavern.