CHAPTER XV.
THE COWARD HERO.
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 darings--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 a
recognized 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 disc 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 _elan_ 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.
