CHAPTER XI. THE SUNSET.
Knowing nothing of darkness, or stars, or moon, Photogen spent hisdays in hunting. On a great white horse he swept over the grassyplains, glorying in the sun, fighting the wind, and killing thebuffaloes.
One morning, when he happened to be on the ground a little earlierthan usual, and before his attendants, he caught sight of an animalunknown to him, stealing from a hollow into which the sunrays had notyet reached. Like a swift shadow it sped over the grass, slinkingsouthward to the forest. He gave chase, noted the body of a buffalo ithad half eaten, and pursued it the harder. But with great leaps andbounds the creature shot farther and farther ahead of him, andvanished. Turning therefore defeated, he met Fargu, who had beenfollowing 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 hispace 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 thecreatures the sun makes uncomfortable. As soon as the sun is down, hewill be brave enough."
He had scarcely said it, when he repented nor did he regret it theless when he found that Photogen made no reply. But alas! said wassaid.
"Then," said Photogen to himself, "that contemptible beast is one ofthe terrors of sundown, of which Madam Watho spoke!"
He hunted all day, but not with his usual spirit. He did not ride sohard, and did not kill one buffalo. Fargu to his dismay observed alsothat he took every pretext for moving farther south, nearer to theforest. But all at once, the sun now sinking in the west, he seemed tochange his mind, for he turned his horse's head, and rode home so fastthat the rest could not keep him in sight. When they arrived, theyfound his horse in the stable, and concluded that he had gone into thecastle. But he had in truth set out again by the back of it. Crossingthe river a good way up the valley, he reascended to the ground theyhad left, and just before sunset reached the skirts of the forest.
The level orb shone straight in between the bare stems, and saying tohimself 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 ofthe 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 darknesshe had not proved. The moment the sun began to sink among the spikesand saw-edges, with a kind of sudden flap at his heart a fearinexplicable laid hold of the youth; and as he had never felt anythingof the kind before, the very fear itself terrified him. As the sunsank, it rose like the shadow of the world, and grew deeper anddarker. He could not even think what it might be, so utterly did itenfeeble him. When the last flaming scimitar-edge of the sun went outlike a lamp, his horror seemed to blossom into very madness. Like theclosing lids of an eye--for there was no twilight, and this night nomoon--the terror and the darkness rushed together, and he knew themfor one. He was no longer the man he had known, or rather thoughthimself. The courage he had had was in no sense his own--he had onlyhad courage, not been courageous; it had left him, and he couldscarcely stand--certainly not stand straight, for not one of hisjoints could he make stiff or keep from trembling. He was but a sparkof the sun, in himself nothing.
The beast was behind him--stealing upon him! He turned. All was darkin the wood, but to his fancy the darkness here and there broke intopairs of green eyes, and he had not the power even to raise hisbow-hand from his side. In the strength of despair he strove to rousecourage 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 notcome. But what he had not, was ignominiously given him. A cry in thewood, half a screech, half a growl, sent him running like aboar-wounded cur. It was not even himself that ran, it was the fearthat had come alive in his legs: he did not know that they moved. Butas 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 nothingfollowed him. "How fallen, how changed," from the youth who hadclimbed the hill as the sun went down! A mere contempt to himself, theself that contemned was a coward with the self it contemned! There laythe shapeless black of a buffalo, humped upon the grass: he made awide circuit, and swept on like a shadow driven in the wind. For thewind had arisen, and added to his terror: it blew from behind him. Hereached the brow of the valley, and shot down the steep descent like afalling star. Instantly the whole upper country behind him arose andpursued him! The wind came howling after him, filled with screams,shrieks, yells, roars, laughter, and chattering, as if all the animalsof the forest were careering with it. In his ears was a tramplingrush, the thunder of the hoofs of the cattle, in career from everyquarter of the wide plains to the brow of the hill above him! He fledstraight for the castle, scarcely with breath enough to pant.
As he reached the bottom of the valley, the moon peered up over itsedge. He had never seen the moon before--except in the daytime, whenhe had taken her for a thin bright cloud. She was a fresh terror tohim--so ghostly! so ghastly! so gruesome!--so knowing as she lookedover the top of her garden-wall upon the world outside! That was thenight itself! the darkness alive--and after him! the horror ofhorrors coming down the sky to curdle his blood, and turn his brain toa cinder! He gave a sob, and made straight for the river, where it ranbetween the two walls, at the bottom of the garden. He plunged in,struggled through, clambered up the bank, and fell senseless on thegrass.