CHAPTER XVII
WATHO'S WOLF.
From that dreadful morning Nycteris had never got to be herself again.
The sudden light had been almost death to her; and now she lay in the
dark with the memory of a terrific sharpness--a something she dared
scarcely recall, lest the very thought of it should sting her beyond
endurance. But this was as nothing to the pain which the recollection
of the rudeness of the shining creature whom she had nursed through
his fear caused her; for, the moment his suffering passed over to her,
and he was free, the first use he made of his returning strength had
been to scorn her! She wondered and wondered; it was all beyond her
comprehension.
Before long, Watho was plotting evil against her. The witch was like a
sick child weary of his toy: she would pull her to pieces, and see how
she liked it. She would set her in the sun, and see her die, like a
jelly from the salt ocean cast out on a hot rock. It would be a sight
to soothe her wolf-pain. One day, therefore, a little before noon,
while Nycteris was in her deepest sleep, she had a darkened litter
brought to the door, and in that she made two of her men carry her to
the plain above. There they took her out, laid her on the grass, and
left her.
Watho watched it all from the top of her high tower, through her
telescope; and scarcely was Nycteris left, when she saw her sit up,
and the same moment cast herself down again with her face to the
ground.
"She'll have a sunstroke," said Watho, "and that'll be the end of
her."
Presently, tormented by a fly, a huge-humped buffalo, with great
shaggy mane, came galloping along, straight for where she lay. At
sight of the thing on the grass, he started, swerved yards aside,
stopped dead, and then came slowly up, looking malicious. Nycteris lay
quite still, and never even saw the animal.
"Now she'll be trodden to death!" said Watho. "That's the way those
creatures do."
When the buffalo reached her, he sniffed at her all over, and went
away; then came back, and sniffed again; then all at once went off as
if a demon had him by the tail.
Next came a gnu, a more dangerous animal still, and did much the same;
then a gaunt wild boar. But no creature hurt her, and Watho was angry
with the whole creation.
At length, in the shade of her hair, the blue eyes of Nycteris began
to come to themselves a little, and the first thing they saw was a
comfort. I have told already how she knew the night-daisies, each a
sharp-pointed little cone with a red tip; and once she had parted the
rays of one of them, with trembling fingers, for she was afraid she
was dreadfully rude, and perhaps was hurting it; but she did want, she
said to herself, to see what secret it carried so carefully hidden;
and she found its golden heart. But now, right under her eyes, inside
the veil of her hair, in the sweet twilight of whose blackness she
could see it perfectly, stood a daisy with its red tip opened wide
into a carmine ring, displaying its heart of gold on a platter of
silver. She did not at first recognize it as one of those cones come
awake, but a moment's notice revealed what it was. Who then could have
been so cruel to the lovely little creature, as to force it open like
that, and spread it heart-bare to the terrible death-lamp? Whoever it
was, it must be the same that had thrown her out there to be burned to
death in its fire! But she had her hair, and could hang her head, and
make a small sweet night of her own about her! She tried to bend the
daisy down and away from the sun, and to make its petals hang about it
like her hair, but she could not. Alas! it was burned and dead
already! She did not know that it could not yield to her gentle force
because it was drinking life, with all the eagerness of life, from
what she called the death-lamp. Oh, how the lamp burned her!
But she went on thinking--she did not know how; and by and by began to
reflect that, as there was no roof to the room except that in which
the great fire went rolling about, the little Red-tip must have seen
the lamp a thousand times, and must know it quite well! and it had not
killed it! Nay, thinking about farther, she began to ask the question
whether this, in which she now saw it, might not be its more perfect
condition. For not only now did the whole seem perfect, as indeed it
did before, but every part showed its own individual perfection as
well, which perfection made it capable of combining with the rest into
the higher perfection of a whole. The flower was a lamp itself! The
golden heart was the light, and the silver border was the alabaster
globe, skilfully broken, and spread wide to let out the glory. Yes;
the radiant shape was plainly its perfection! If, then, it was the
lamp which had opened it into that shape, the lamp could not be
unfriendly to it, but must be of its own kind, seeing it made it
perfect! And again, when she thought of it, there was clearly no
little resemblance between them. What if the flower then was the
little great-grandchild of the lamp, and he was loving it all the
time? And what if the lamp did not mean to hurt her, only could not
help it? The red lips looked as if the flower had some time or other
been hurt: what if the lamp was making the best it could of
her--opening her out somehow like the flower? She would bear it
patiently, and see. But how coarse the colour of the grass was!
Perhaps, however, her eyes not being made for the bright lamp, she did
not see them us they were! Then she remembered how different were the
eyes of the creature that was not a girl and was afraid of the
darkness! Ah, if the darkness would only come again, all arms,
friendly and soft everywhere about her! She would wait and wait, and
bear, and be patient.
She lay so still that Watho did not doubt she had fainted. She was
pretty sure she would be dead before the night came to revive her.
