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. "It is the soul, the life, the heart, the glory of the universe," he said. "The worlds dance like motes in his beams. The heart of man is strong and brave in his light, and when it departs his courage grows from him--goes with the sun, and he becomes such as you see me now." "Then that is not the sun?" said Nycteris, thoughtfully, pointing up to the moon. "That!" cried Photogen, with utter scorn; "I know nothing about _that_, except that it is ugly and horrible. At best it can be only the ghost of a dead sun. Yes, that is it! That is what makes it look so frightful." "No," said Nycteris, after a long, thoughtful pause; "you must be wrong there. I think the sun is the ghost of a dead moon, and that is how he is so much more splendid as you say.--Is there, then, another big room, where the sun lives in the roof?" "I do not know what you mean," replied Photogen. "But you mean to be kind, I know, though you should not call a poor fellow in the dark a girl. If you will let me lie here, with my head in your lap, I should like to sleep. Will you watch me, and take care of me?" "Yes, that I will," answered Nycteris, forgetting all her own danger. So Photogen fell asleep. CHAPTER XIV. THE SUN. There Nycteris sat, and there the youth lay, all night long, in the heart of the great cone-shadow of the earth, like two Pharaohs in one pyramid. Photogen slept, and slept; and Nycteris sat motionless lest she should wake him, and so betray him to his fear.