But no sooner had the sun reached the noonstead than Photogen began to
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 to himself only,
but to a girl as well--a coward!--one bold in the daylight, while there
was nothing to fear, but trembling like any slave when the night
arrived. There was, there must be, something unfair in it! A spell had
been cast upon him! He had eaten, he had drunk, something that did not
agree with courage. In any case he had been taken unprepared. How was he
to know what the going down of the sun would be like? It was no wonder
he should have been surprised into terror, seeing it was what it was--in
its very nature so terrible! Also, one could not see where danger might
be coming from! You might be torn in pieces, carried off, or swallowed
up, without even seeing where to strike a blow! Every possible excuse he
caught at, eager as a self-lover to lighten his self-contempt. That day
he astonished the huntsmen--terrified them with his reckless daring--all
to prove to himself he was no coward.
But nothing eased his shame. One thing only had 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 and recognize danger than to rush
contemptuously into what seemed nothing--nobler still, to encounter a
nameless horror. He could conquer fear and wipe out disgrace together.
For a marksman and swordsman like him, 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 he would meet it as fearless and cool as
now he felt himself. And again he 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 was
trembling like one of the leaves behind him in the first sigh of the
night wind. The moment the last of the glowing disk vanished, he bounded
away in terror to gain the valley, and his fear grew as he ran. Down the
side of the hill, an abject creature, he went bounding and rolling and
running; fell rather than plunged into the river, and came 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 into
his; there were only the stars in the waste of the sunless Night--the
awful all-enemy he had again dared, but could not encounter. Perhaps the
girl was not yet come out of the water! He would try to sleep, for he
dared not move, and perhaps when he woke he would find his head on her
lap, and the beautiful dark face, with its deep blue eyes, bending over
him. But when he woke he found his head on the grass, and although he
sprang up with all his courage, such as it was, restored, he did not set
out for the chase with such an _élan_ as the day before; and despite the
sun-glory in his heart and veins, his hunting was this day less eager;
he ate little, and from the first was thoughtful even to sadness. A
second time he was defeated and disgraced! Was his courage nothing more
than the play of the sunlight on his brain? Was he a mere ball tossed
between the light and the dark? Then what a poor contemptible creature
he was! But a third chance lay before him. If he failed the third time,
he dared not foreshadow what he must then think of himself! It was bad
enough now--but then!
Alas! it went no better. The moment the sun was down, he fled as if from
a legion of devils.
Seven times in all he tried to face the coming night in the strength of
the past day, and seven times he failed--failed with such increase of
failure, with such a growing sense of ignominy, overwhelming at length
all the sunny hours and joining night to night, that, what with misery,
self-accusation, and loss of confidence, his daylight courage too began
to fade, and at length, from exhaustion, from getting wet, and then
lying out-of-doors all night, and night after night--worst of all, from
the consuming of the deathly fear, and the shame of shame, his sleep
forsook him, and on the seventh morning, instead of going to the hunt,
he crawled into the castle, and went to bed. The grand 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.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
[Illustration: BRINGING CHRISTMAS CHEER.]
[Illustration: LITTLE BO-PEEP FELL FAST ASLEEP, AND DREAMT--]