Stephen Archer, and Other Tales

  CHAPTER XIII. SOMETHING QUITE NEW.

  A beautiful moth brushed across the great blue eyes of Nycteris. Shesprang to her feet to follow it--not in the spirit of the hunter, butof the lover. Her heart--like every heart, if only its fallen sideswere cleared away--was an inexhaustible fountain of love: she lovedeverything she saw. But as she followed the moth, she caught sight ofsomething lying on the bank of the river, and not yet having learnedto be afraid of anything, ran straight to see what it was. Reachingit, she stood amazed. Another girl like herself! But what astrange-looking girl!--so curiously dressed too!--and not able tomove! Was she dead? Filled suddenly with pity, she sat down, liftedPhotogen's head, laid it on her lap, and began stroking his face. Herwarm hands brought him to himself. He opened his black eyes, out ofwhich had gone all the fire, and looked up with a strange sound offear, half moan, half gasp. But when he saw her face, he drew a deepbreath, and lay motionless--gazing at her: those blue marvels abovehim, like a better sky, seemed to side with courage and assuage histerror. At length, in a trembling, awed voice, and a half whisper, hesaid, "Who are you?"

  "I am Nycteris," she answered.

  "You are a creature of the darkness, and love the night," he said, hisfear beginning to move again.

  "I may be a creature of the darkness," she replied. "I hardly knowwhat you mean. But I do not love the night. I love the day--with allmy heart; and I sleep all the night long."

  "How can that be?" said Photogen, rising on his elbow, but dropping hishead 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, andthought he did not know what he was saying.

  "Was it a dream then?" resumed Photogen, rubbing his eyes. But withthat 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 amother 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 mustbe! What you hear is only the walking of the water, and the runningabout of the sweetest of all the creatures. She is invisible, and Icall her Everywhere, for she goes through all the other creatures andcomforts them. Now she is amusing herself, and them too, with shakingthem and kissing them, and blowing in their faces. Listen: do you callthat roaring? You should hear her when she is rather angry though! Idon't know why, but she is sometimes, and then she does roar alittle."

  "It is so horribly dark!" said Photogen, who, listening while shespoke, had satisfied himself that there was no roaring.

  "Dark!" she echoed. "You should be in my room when an earthquake haskilled my lamp. I do not understand. How _can_ you call this dark? Letme see: yes, you have eyes, and big ones, bigger than Madam Watho's orFalca's--not so big as mine, I fancy--only I never saw mine. Butthen--oh yes!--I know now what is the matter! You can't see with thembecause 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 lovelywhite things in the grass, with red sharp points all folded togetherinto one. Oh, I love them so! I could sit looking at them all day, thedarlings!"

  Photogen looked close at the flowers, and thought he had seensomething like them before, but could not make them out. As Nycterishad never seen an open daisy, so had he never seen a closed one.

  Thus instinctively Nycteris tried to turn him away from his fear; andthe beautiful creature's strange lovely talk helped not a little tomake him forget it.

  "You call it dark!" she said again, as if she could not get rid of theabsurdity of the idea; "why, I could count every blade of the greenhair--I suppose it is what the books call grass--within two yards ofme! And just look at the great lamp! It is brighter than usual to-day,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 tocomfort him. But oh how miserable he was! and how plainly he lookedit! He was on the point of saying that her great lamp was dreadful tohim, looking like a witch, walking in the sleep of death; but he wasnot so ignorant as Nycteris, and knew even in the moonlight that shewas a woman, though he had never seen one so young or so lovelybefore; and while she comforted his fear, her presence made him themore ashamed of it. Besides, not knowing her nature, he might annoyher, 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 fromher, and if he were to move, she might move; and if she were to leavehim, he must weep like a child.

  "How did you come here?" asked Nycteris, taking his face between herhands.

  "Down the hill," he answered.

  "Where do you sleep?" she asked.

  He signed in the direction of the house. She gave a little laugh ofdelight.

  "When you have learned not to be frightened, you will always bewanting to come out with me," she said.

  She thought with herself she would ask her presently, when she hadcome 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 andFalca had been keeping her.

  "Look at the lovely colours," she went on, pointing to a rose-bush, onwhich Photogen could not see a single flower. "They are far morebeautiful--are they not?--than any of the colours upon your walls. Andthen they are alive, and smell so sweet!"

  He wished she would not make him keep opening his eyes to look atthings he could not see; and every other moment would start and grasptight hold of her, as some fresh pang of terror shot into him.

  "Come, come, dear!" said Nycteris; "you must not go on this way. Youmust be a brave girl, and--"

  "A girl!" shouted Photogen, and started to his feet in wrath. "If youwere a man, I should kill you."

  "A man?" repeated Nycteris: "what is that? How could I be that? We areboth girls--are we not?"

  "No, I am not a girl," he answered; "--although," he added, changinghis tone, and casting himself on the ground at her feet, "I have givenyou 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 becauseyou 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 thatcreeps into me, goes all through me, into the very marrow of mybones--that is what makes me behave like a girl. If only the sun wouldrise!"

  "The sun! what is it?" cried Nycteris, now in her turn conceiving avague fear.

  Then Photogen broke into a rhapsody, in which he vainly sought toforget his.

  "It is the soul, the life, the heart, the glory of the universe," hesaid. "The worlds dance like motes in his beams. The heart of man isstrong and brave in his light, and when it departs his courage growsfrom him--goes with the sun, and he becomes such as you see me now."

  "Then that is not the sun?" said Nycteris, thoughtfully, pointing upto 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 onlythe ghost of a dead sun. Yes, that is it! That is what makes it lookso frightful."

  "No," said Nycteris, after a long, thoughtful pause; "you must bewrong there. I think the sun is the ghost of a dead moon, and that ishow he is so much more splendid as you say.--Is there, then, anotherbig room, where the sun lives in the roof?"

  "I do not know what you mean," replied Photogen. "But you mean to bekind, I know, though you should not call a poor fellow in the dark agirl. If you will let me lie here, with my head in your lap, I shouldlike 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.