CHAPTER IX. OUT.
But alas! _out_ was very much like _in_, for the same enemy, thedarkness, was here also. The next moment, however, came a greatgladness--a firefly, which had wandered in from the garden. She sawthe tiny spark in the distance. With slow pulsing ebb and throb oflight, it came pushing itself through the air, drawing nearer andnearer, 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 forme here all the time! It knew I would come after it, and waited totake me with it."
She followed the firefly, which, like herself, was seeking the wayout. If it did not know the way, it was yet light; and, because alllight is one, any light may serve to guide to more light. If she wasmistaken in thinking it the spirit of her lamp, it was of the samespirit as her lamp--and had wings. The gold-green jet-boat, driven bylight, went throbbing before her through a long narrow passage.Suddenly it rose higher, and the same moment Nycteris fell upon anascending stair. She had never seen a stair before, and found going-upa curious sensation. Just as she reached what seemed the top, thefirefly ceased to shine, and so disappeared. She was in utter darknessonce more. But when we are following the light, even its extinction isa guide. If the firefly had gone on shining, Nycteris would have seenthe stair turn, and would have gone up to Watho's bedroom; whereasnow, feeling straight before her, she came to a latched door, whichafter a good deal of trying she managed to open--and stood in a mazeof wondering perplexity, awe, and delight. What was it? Was it outsideof her, or something taking place in her head? Before her was a verylong and very narrow passage, broken up she could not tell how, andspreading out above and on all sides to an infinite height and breadthand distance--as if space itself were growing out of a trough. It wasbrighter than her rooms had ever been--brighter than if six alabasterlamps had been burning in them. There was a quantity of strangestreaking and mottling about it, very different from the shapes on herwalls. She was in a dream of pleasant perplexity, of delightfulbewilderment. She could not tell whether she was upon her feet ordrifting about like the firefly, driven by the pulses of an inwardbliss. But she knew little as yet of her inheritance. Unconsciouslyshe took one step forward from the threshold, and the girl who hadbeen from her very birth a troglodyte, stood in the ravishing glory ofa southern night, lit by a perfect moon--not the moon of our northernclime, but a moon like silver glowing in a furnace--a moon one couldsee to be a globe--not far off, a mere flat disc on the face of theblue, but hanging down halfway, and looking as if one could see allround it by a mere bending of the neck.
"It is my lamp!" she said, and stood dumb with parted lips. She lookedand felt as if she had been standing there in silent ecstasy from thebeginning.
"No, it is not my lamp," she said after a while; "it is the mother ofall the lamps."
And with that she fell on her knees, and spread out her hands to themoon. She could not in the least have told what was in her mind, butthe action was in reality just a begging of the moon to be what shewas--that precise incredible splendour hung in the far-off roof, thatvery glory essential to the being of poor girls born and bred incaverns. It was a resurrection--nay, a birth itself, to Nycteris. Whatthe vast blue sky, studded with tiny sparks like the heads of diamondnails, could be; what the moon, looking so absolutely content withlight.--why, she knew less about them than you and I! but the greatestof astronomers might envy the rapture of such a first impression atthe age of sixteen. Immeasurably imperfect it was, but false theimpression 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 whatit was. It was likest a woman's breath. For she know nothing of theair even, had never breathed the still newborn freshness of the world.Her breath had come to her only through long passages and spirals inthe rock. Still less did she know of the air alive with motion--ofthat thrice blessed thing, the wind of a summer night. It was like aspiritual wine, filling her whole being with an intoxication of purestjoy. To breathe was a perfect existence. It seemed to her the lightitself she drew into her lungs. Possessed by the power of the gorgeousnight, she seemed at one and the same moment annihilated andglorified.
She was in the open passage or gallery that ran round the top of thegarden walls, between the cleft battlements, but she did not once lookdown to see what lay beneath. Her soul was drawn to the vault aboveher, 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 itslightning and rain.
And now she grew thoughtful. She must hoard this splendour! What alittle ignorance her gaolers had made of her! Life was a mighty bliss,and they had scraped hers to the bare bone! They must not know thatshe 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, evenwhen she could not brood on its presence, feasting her eyes with itsglory. She turned from the vision, therefore, with a sigh of utterbliss, and with soft quiet steps and groping hands, stole back intothe darkness of the rock. What was darkness or the laziness of Time'sfeet to one who had seen what she had that night seen? She was liftedabove all weariness--above all wrong.
When Falca entered, she uttered a cry of terror. But Nycteris calledto her not to be afraid, and told her how there had come a rumblingand a shaking, and the lamp had fallen. Then Falca went and told hermistress, and within an hour a new globe hung in the place of the oldone. Nycteris thought it did not look so bright and clear as theformer, but she made no lamentation over the change; she was far toorich to heed it. For now, prisoner as she knew herself, her heart wasfull of glory and gladness; at times she had to hold herself fromjumping up, and going dancing and singing about the room. When sheslept, instead of dull dreams, she had splendid visions. There weretimes, it is true, when she became restless, and impatient to lookupon her riches, but then she would reason with herself, saying, "Whatdoes it matter if I sit here for ages with my poor pale lamp, when outthere a lump is burning at which ten thousand little lamps are glowingwith wonder?"
She never doubted she had looked upon the day and the sun, of whichshe had read; and always when she read of the day and the sun, she hadthe night and the moon in her mind; and when she read of the night andthe moon, she thought only of the cave and the lamp that hung there.