The Day Boy and the Night Girl | Page 9

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 Madame 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