A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Stephen Archer and Other Tales

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CHAPTER X.

THE GREAT LAMP.


It was some time before she had a second opportunity of going out, for
Falca, since the fall of the lamp, had been a little more careful, and
seldom left her for long. But one night, having a little headache,
Nycteris lay down upon her bed, and was lying with her eyes closed,
when she heard Falca come to her, and felt she was bending over her.
Disinclined to talk, she did not open her eyes, and lay quite still.
Satisfied that she was asleep, Falca left her, moving so softly that
her very caution made Nycteris open her eyes and look after her--just
in time to see her vanish--through a picture, as it seemed, that hung
on the wall a long way from the usual place of issue. She jumped up,
her headache forgotten, and ran in the opposite direction; got out,
groped her way to the stair, climbed, and reached the top of the
wall.--Alas! the great room was not so light as the little one she had
left. Why?--Sorrow of sorrows! the great lamp was gone! Had its globe
fallen? and its lovely light gone out upon great wings, a resplendent
firefly, oaring itself through a yet grander and lovelier room? She
looked down to see if it lay anywhere broken to pieces on the carpet
below; but she could not even see the carpet. But surely nothing very
dreadful could have happened--no rumbling or shaking, for there were
all the little lamps shining brighter than before, not one of them
looking as if any unusual matter had befallen. What if each of those
little lamps was growing into a big lamp, and after being a big lamp
for a while, had to go out and grow a bigger lamp still--out there,
beyond this _out_?--Ah! here was the living thing that would not be
seen, come to her again--bigger to-night! with such loving kisses, and
such liquid strokings of her cheeks and forehead, gently tossing her
hair, and delicately toying with it! But it ceased, and all was still.
Had it gone out? What would happen next? Perhaps the little lamps had
not to grow great lamps, but to fall one by one and go out
first?--With that, came from below a sweet scent, then another, and
another. Ah, how delicious! Perhaps they were all coming to her only
on their way out after the great lamp!--Then came the music of the
river, which she had been too absorbed in the sky to note the first
time. What was it? Alas! alas! another sweet living thing on its way
out. They were all marching slowly out in long lovely file, one after
the other, each taking its leave of her as it passed! It must be so:
here were more and more sweet sounds, following and fading! The whole
of the _Out_ was going out again; it was all going after the great
lovely lamp! She would be left the only creature in the solitary day!
Was there nobody to hang up a new lamp for the old one, and keep the
creatures from going?--She crept back to her rock very sad. She tried
to comfort herself by saying that anyhow there would be room out
there; but as she said it she shuddered at the thought of _empty_
room.

When next she succeeded in getting out, a half-moon hung in the east:
a new lamp had come, she thought, and all would be well.

It would be endless to describe the phases of feeling through which
Nycteris passed, more numerous and delicate than those of a thousand
changing moons. A fresh bliss bloomed in her soul with every varying
aspect of infinite nature. Ere long she began to suspect that the new
moon was the old moon, gone out and come in again like herself; also
that, unlike herself, it wasted and grew again; that it was indeed a
live thing, subject like herself to caverns, and keepers, and
solitudes, escaping and shining when it could. Was it a prison like
hers it was shut in? and did it grow dark when the lamp left it? Where
could be the way into it?--With that first she began to look below, as
well as above and around her; and then first noted the tops of the
trees between her and the floor. There were palms with their
red-fingered hands full of fruit; eucalyptus trees crowded with little
boxes of powder-puffs; oleanders with their half-caste roses; and
orange trees with their clouds of young silver stars, and their aged
balls of gold. Her eyes could see colours invisible to ours in the
moonlight, and all these she could distinguish well, though at first
she took them for the shapes and colours of the carpet of the great
room. She longed to get down among them, now she saw they were real
creatures, but she did not know how. She went along the whole length
of the wall to the end that crossed the river, but found no way of
going down. Above the river she stopped to gaze with awe upon the
rushing water. She knew nothing of water but from what she drank and
what she bathed in; and, as the moon shone on the dark, swift stream,
singing lustily as it flowed, she did not doubt the river was alive, a
swift rushing serpent of life, going--out?--whither? And then she
wondered if what was brought into her rooms had been killed that she
might drink it, and have her bath in it.

Once when she stepped out upon the wall, it was into the midst of a
fierce wind. The trees were all roaring. Great clouds were rushing
along the skies, and tumbling over the little lamps: the great lamp
had not come yet. All was in tumult. The wind seized her garments and
hair, and shook them as if it would tear them from her. What could she
have done to make the gentle creature so angry? Or was this another
creature altogether--of the same kind, but hugely bigger, and of a
very different temper and behaviour? But the whole place was angry! Or
was it that the creatures dwelling in it, the wind, and the trees, and
the clouds, and the river, had all quarrelled, each with all the rest?
Would the whole come to confusion and disorder? But, as she gazed
wondering and disquieted, the moon, larger than ever she had seen her,
came lifting herself above the horizon to look, broad and red, as if
she, too, were swollen with anger that she had been roused from her
rest by their noise, and compelled to hurry up to see what her
children were about, thus rioting in her absence, lest they should
rack the whole frame of things. And as she rose, the loud wind grew
quieter and scolded less fiercely, the trees grew stiller and moaned
with a lower complaint, and the clouds hunted and hurled themselves
less wildly across the sky. And as if she were pleased that her
children obeyed her very presence, the moon grew smaller as she
ascended the heavenly stair; her puffed cheeks sank, her complexion
grew clearer, and a sweet smile spread over her countenance, as
peacefully she rose and rose. But there was treason and rebellion in
her court; for, ere she reached the top of her great stairs, the
clouds had assembled, forgetting their late wars, and very still they
were as they laid their heads together and conspired. Then combining,
and lying silently in wait until she came near, they threw themselves
upon her, and swallowed her up. Down from the roof came spots of wet,
faster and faster, and they wetted the cheeks of Nycteris; and what
could they be but the tears of the moon, crying because her children
were smothering her? Nycteris wept too, and not knowing what to think,
stole back in dismay to her room.

The next time, she came out in fear and trembling. There was the moon
still! away in the west--poor, indeed, and old, and looking dreadfully
worn, as if all the wild beasts in the sky had been gnawing at
her--but there she was, alive still, and able to shine!




CHAPTER XI.

THE SUNSET.


Knowing nothing of darkness, or stars, or moon, Photogen spent his
days in hunting. On a great white horse he swept over the grassy
plains, glorying in the sun, fighting the wind, and killing the
buffaloes.

One morning, when he happened to be on the ground a little earlier
than usual, and before his attendants, he caught sight of an animal
unknown to him, stealing from a hollow into which the sunrays had not
yet reached. Like a swift shadow it sped over the grass, slinking
southward to the forest. He gave chase, noted the body of a buffalo it
had half eaten, and pursued it the harder. But with great leaps and
bounds the creature shot farther and farther ahead of him, and
vanished. Turning therefore defeated, he met Fargu, who had been
following 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 his
pace and look that he was a young lion.

"What a coward he must he!" said Photogen.

"Don't be too sure of that," rejoined Fargu. "He is one of the
creatures the sun makes uncomfortable. As soon as the sun is down, he
will be brave enough."

He had scarcely said it, when he repented nor did he regret it the
less when he found that Photogen made no reply. But alas! said was
said.

"Then," said Photogen to himself, "that contemptible beast is one of
the terrors of sundown, of which Madam Watho spoke!"

He hunted all day, but not with his usual spirit. He did not ride so
hard, and did not kill one buffalo. Fargu to his dismay observed also
that he took every pretext for moving farther south, nearer to the
forest. But all at once, the sun now sinking in the west, he seemed to
change his mind, for he turned his horse's head, and rode home so fast
that the rest could not keep him in sight. When they arrived, they
found his horse in the stable, and concluded that he had gone into the
castle. But he had in truth set out again by the back of it. Crossing
the river a good way up the valley, he reascended to the ground they
had left, and just before sunset reached the skirts of the forest.

The level orb shone straight in between the bare stems, and saying to
himself 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 of
the 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 darkness
he had not proved. The moment the sun began to sink among the spikes
and saw-edges, with a kind of sudden flap at his heart a fear
inexplicable laid hold of the youth; and as he had never felt anything
of the kind before, the very fear itself terrified him. As the sun
sank, it rose like the shadow of the world, and grew deeper and
darker. He could not even think what it might be, so utterly did it
enfeeble him. When the last flaming scimitar-edge of the sun went out
like a lamp, his horror seemed to blossom into very madness. Like the
closing lids of an eye--for there was no twilight, and this night no
moon--the terror and the darkness rushed together, and he knew them
for one. He was no longer the man he had known, or rather thought
himself. The courage he had had was in no sense his own--he had only
had courage, not been courageous; it had left him, and he could
scarcely stand--certainly not stand straight, for not one of his
joints could he make stiff or keep from trembling. He was but a spark
of the sun, in himself nothing.

The beast was behind him--stealing upon him! He turned. All was dark
in the wood, but to his fancy the darkness here and there broke into
pairs of green eyes, and he had not the power even to raise his
bow-hand from his side. In the strength of despair he strove to rouse
courage 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 not
come. But what he had not, was ignominiously given him. A cry in the
wood, half a screech, half a growl, sent him running like a
boar-wounded cur. It was not even himself that ran, it was the fear
that had come alive in his legs: he did not know that they moved. But
as 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 nothing
followed him. "How fallen, how changed," from the youth who had
climbed the hill as the sun went down! A mere contempt to himself, the
self that contemned was a coward with the self it contemned! There lay
the shapeless black of a buffalo, humped upon the grass: he made a
wide circuit, and swept on like a shadow driven in the wind. For the
wind had arisen, and added to his terror: it blew from behind him. He
reached the brow of the valley, and shot down the steep descent like a
falling star. Instantly the whole upper country behind him arose and
pursued him! The wind came howling after him, filled with screams,
shrieks, yells, roars, laughter, and chattering, as if all the animals
of the forest were careering with it. In his ears was a trampling
rush, the thunder of the hoofs of the cattle, in career from every
quarter of the wide plains to the brow of the hill above him! He fled
straight for the castle, scarcely with breath enough to pant.

As he reached the bottom of the valley, the moon peered up over its
edge. He had never seen the moon before--except in the daytime, when
he had taken her for a thin bright cloud. She was a fresh terror to
him--so ghostly! so ghastly! so gruesome!--so knowing as she looked
over the top of her garden-wall upon the world outside! That was the
night itself! the darkness alive--and after him! the horror of
horrors coming down the sky to curdle his blood, and turn his brain to
a cinder! He gave a sob, and made straight for the river, where it ran
between the two walls, at the bottom of the garden. He plunged in,
struggled through, clambered up the bank, and fell senseless on the
grass.




CHAPTER XII.

THE GARDEN.


Although Nycteris took care not to stay out long at a time, and used
every precaution, she could hardly have escaped discovery so long, had
it not been that the strange attacks to which Watho was subject had
been more frequent of late, and had at last settled into an illness
which kept her to her bed. But whether from an access of caution or
from suspicion, Falca, having now to be much with her mistress both
day and night, took it at length into her head to fasten the door as
often as she went by her usual place of exit; so that one night, when
Nycteris pushed, she found, to her surprise and dismay, that the wall
pushed her again, and would not let her through; nor with all her
searching could she discover wherein lay the cause of the change. Then
first she felt the pressure of her prison-walls, and turning, half in
despair, groped her way to the picture where she had once seen Falca
disappear. There she soon found the spot by pressing upon which the
wall yielded. It let her through into a sort of cellar, where was a
glimmer of light from a sky whose blue was paled by the moon. From the
cellar she got into a long passage, into which the moon was shining,
and came to a door. She managed to open it, and, to her great joy,
found herself in _the other place_, not on the top of the wall,
however, but in the garden she had longed to enter. Noiseless as a
fluffy moth she flitted away into the covert of the trees and shrubs,
her bare feet welcomed by the softest of carpets, which, by the very
touch, her feet knew to be alive, whence it came that it was so sweet
and friendly to them. A soft little wind was out among the trees,
running now here, now there, like a child that had got its will. She
went dancing over the grass, looking behind her at her shadow, as she
went. At first she had taken it for a little black creature that made
game of her, but when she perceived that it was only where she kept
the moon away, and that every tree, however great and grand a
creature, had also one of these strange attendants, she soon learned
not to mind it, and by and by it became the source of as much
amusement to her, as to any kitten its tail. It was long before she
was quite at home with the trees, however. At one time they seemed to
disapprove of her; at another not even to know she was there, and to
be altogether taken up with their own business. Suddenly, as she went
from one to another of them, looking up with awe at the murmuring
mystery of their branches and leaves, she spied one a little way off,
which was very different from all the rest. It was white, and dark,
and sparkling, and spread like a palm--a small slender palm, without
much head; and it grew very fast, and sang as it grew. But it never
grew any bigger, for just as fast as she could see it growing, it kept
falling to pieces. When she got close to it, she discovered that it
was a water-tree--made of just such water as she washed with--only it
was alive of course, like the river--a different sort of water from
that, doubtless, seeing the one crept swiftly along the floor, and the
other shot straight up, and fell, and swallowed itself, and rose
again. She put her feet into the marble basin, which was the
flower-pot in which it grew. It was full of real water, living and
cool--so nice, for the night was hot!

But the flowers! ah, the flowers! she was friends with them from the
very first. What wonderful creatures they were!--and so kind and
beautiful--always sending out such colours and such scents--red scent,
and white scent, and yellow scent--for the other creatures! The one
that was invisible and everywhere, took such a quantity of their
scents, and carried it away! yet they did not seem to mind. It was
their talk, to show they were alive, and not painted like those on the
walls of her rooms, and on the carpets.

She wandered along down the garden until she reached the river. Unable
then to get any further--for she was a little afraid, and justly, of
the swift watery serpent--she dropped on the grassy bank, dipped her
feet in the water, and felt it running and pushing against them. For a
long time she sat thus, and her bliss seemed complete, as she gazed at
the river, and watched the broken picture of the great lamp overhead,
moving up one side of the roof, to go down the other.




CHAPTER XIII.

SOMETHING QUITE NEW.


A beautiful moth brushed across the great blue eyes of Nycteris. She
sprang to her feet to follow it--not in the spirit of the hunter, but
of the lover. Her heart--like every heart, if only its fallen sides
were cleared away--was an inexhaustible fountain of love: she loved
everything she saw. But as she followed the moth, she caught sight of
something lying on the bank of the river, and not yet having learned
to be afraid of anything, ran straight to see what it was. Reaching
it, she stood amazed. Another girl like herself! But what a
strange-looking girl!--so curiously dressed too!--and not able to
move! Was she dead? Filled suddenly with pity, she sat down, lifted
Photogen's head, laid it on her lap, and began stroking his face. Her
warm hands brought him to himself. He opened his black eyes, out of
which had gone all the fire, and looked up with a strange sound of
fear, half moan, half gasp. But when he saw her face, he drew a deep
breath, and lay motionless--gazing at her: those blue marvels above
him, like a better sky, seemed to side with courage and assuage his
terror. At length, in a trembling, awed voice, and a half whisper, he
said, "Who are you?"

"I am Nycteris," she answered.

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

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

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

"Was it a dream then?" resumed Photogen, rubbing his eyes. But with
that 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 a
mother 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 must
be! What you hear is only the walking of the water, and the running
about of the sweetest of all the creatures. She is invisible, and I
call her Everywhere, for she goes through all the other creatures and
comforts them. Now she is amusing herself, and them too, with shaking
them and kissing them, and blowing in their faces. Listen: do you call
that roaring? You should hear her when she is rather angry though! I
don't know why, but she is sometimes, and then she does roar a
little."

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

"Dark!" she echoed. "You should be in my room when an earthquake has
killed my lamp. I do not understand. How _can_ you call this dark? Let
me see: yes, you have eyes, and big ones, bigger than Madam Watho's or
Falca's--not so big as mine, I fancy--only I never saw mine. But
then--oh yes!--I know now what is the matter! You can't see with them
because 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 lovely
white things in the grass, with red sharp points all folded together
into one. Oh, I love them so! I could sit looking at them all day, the
darlings!"

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

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

"You call it dark!" she said again, as if she could not get rid of the
absurdity of the idea; "why, I could count every blade of the green
hair--I suppose it is what the books call grass--within two yards of
me! 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 to
comfort him. But oh how miserable he was! and how plainly he looked
it! He was on the point of saying that her great lamp was dreadful to
him, looking like a witch, walking in the sleep of death; but he was
not so ignorant as Nycteris, and knew even in the moonlight that she
was a woman, though he had never seen one so young or so lovely
before; and while she comforted his fear, her presence made him the
more ashamed of it. Besides, not knowing her nature, he might annoy
her, 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 from
her, and if he were to move, she might move; and if she were to leave
him, he must weep like a child.

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

"Down the hill," he answered.

"Where do you sleep?" she asked.

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

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

She thought with herself she would ask her presently, when she had
come 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 and
Falca had been keeping her.

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

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

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

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

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

"No, I am not a girl," he answered; "--although," he added, changing
his tone, and casting himself on the ground at her feet, "I have given
you 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 because
you 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 that
creeps into me, goes all through me, into the very marrow of my
bones--that is what makes me behave like a girl. If only the sun would
rise!"

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

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

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