CHAPTER XV. THE COWARD HERO.
But no sooner had the sun reached the noonstead, than Photogen beganto 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 tohimself only, but to a girl as well--a coward!--one bold in thedaylight, while there was nothing to fear, but trembling like anyslave when the night arrived. There was, there must be, somethingunfair in it! A spell had been cast upon him! He had eaten, he haddrunk something that did not agree with courage! In any case he hadbeen taken unprepared! How was he to know what the going down of thesun would be like? It was no wonder he should have been surprised intoterror, seeing it was what it was--in its very nature so terrible!Also, one could not see where danger might be coming from! You mightbe torn in pieces, carried off, or swallowed up, without even seeingwhere to strike a blow! Every possible excuse he caught at, eager as aself-lover to lighten his self-contempt. That day he astonished thehuntsmen--terrified them with his reckless darings--all to prove tohimself he was no coward. But nothing eased his shame. One thing onlyhad 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 arecognized danger than to rush contemptuously into what seemednothing--nobler still to encounter a nameless horror. He could conquerfear and wipe out disgrace together. For a marksman and swordsman likehim, 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 hewould meet it as fearless and cool as now he felt himself. And againhe 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 wastrembling like one of the leaves behind him in the first sigh of thenight-wind. The moment the last of the glowing disc vanished, hebounded away in terror to gain the valley, and his fear grew as heran. Down the side of the hill, an abject creature, he went boundingand rolling and running; fell rather than plunged into the river, andcame 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 intohis; there were only the stars in the waste of the sunless Night--theawful all-enemy he had again dared, but could not encounter. Perhapsthe girl was not yet come out of the water! He would try to sleep, forhe dared not move, and perhaps when he woke he would find his head onher lap, and the beautiful dark face, with its deep blue eyes, bendingover him. But when he woke he found his head on the grass, andalthough he sprang up with all his courage, such as it was, restored,he did not set out for the chase with such an _elan_ as the daybefore; and, despite the sun-glory in his heart and veins, his huntingwas this day less eager; he ate little, and from the first wasthoughtful even to sadness. A second time he was defeated anddisgraced! Was his courage nothing more than the play of the sunlighton his brain? Was he a mere ball tossed between the light and thedark? Then what a poor contemptible creature he was! But a thirdchance lay before him. If he failed the third time, he dared notforeshadow what he must then think of himself! It was bad enoughnow--but then!
Alas! it went no better. The moment the sun was down, he fled as iffrom a legion of devils.
Seven times in all, he tried to face the coming night in the strengthof the past day, and seven times he failed--failed with such increaseof failure, with such a growing sense of ignominy, overwhelming atlength all the sunny hours and joining night to night, that, what withmisery, self-accusation, and loss of confidence, his daylight couragetoo began to fade, and at length, from exhaustion, from getting wet,and then lying out of doors all night, and night after night,--worstof all, from the consuming of the deathly fear, and the shame ofshame, his sleep forsook him, and on the seventh morning, instead ofgoing to the hunt, he crawled into the castle, and went to bed. Thegrand 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.