"I can not; I dare not," said Photogen. "I cannot move. If I but lift my head from your lap, the very sickness of terror seizes me." "I shall be with you," said Nycteris soothingly. "I will take care of you till your dreadful sun comes, and then you may leave me, and go away as fast as you can. Only please put me in a dark place first, if there is one to be found." "I will never leave you again, Nycteris," cried Photogen. "Only wait till the sun comes, and brings me back my strength, and we will go away together, and never, never part any more." "No, no," persisted Nycteris; "we must go now. And you must learn to be strong in the dark as well as in the day, else you will always be only half brave. I have begun already--not to fight your sun, but to try to get at peace with him, and understand what he really is, and what he means with me--whether to hurt me or to make the best of me. You must do the same with my darkness." "But you don't know what mad animals there are away there towards the south," said Photogen. "They have huge green eyes, and they would eat you up like a bit of celery, you beautiful creature!" "Come, come! you must," said Nycteris, "or I shall have to pretend to leave you, to make you come. I have seen the green eyes you speak of, and I will take care of you from them." "You! How can you do that? If it were day now, I could take care of you from the worst of them. But as it is, I can't even see them for this abominable darkness. I could not see your lovely eyes but for the light that is in them; that lets me see straight into heaven through them. They are windows into the very heaven beyond the sky. I believe they are the very place where the stars are made." "You come then, or I shall shut them," said Nycteris, "and you shan't see them any more till you are good. Come. If you can't see the wild beasts, I can." "You can! and you ask me to come!" cried Photogen. "Yes," answered Nycteris. "And more than that, I see them long before they can see me, so that I am able to take care of you." "But how?" persisted Photogen. "You can't shoot with bow and arrow, or stab with a hunting-knife." "No, but I can keep out of the way of them all. Why, just when I found you, I was having a game with two or three of them at once. I see, and scent them too, long before they are near me--long before they can see or scent me." "You don't see or scent any now, do you?" said Photogen, uneasily, rising on his elbow. "No--none at present. I will look," replied Nycteris, and sprang to her feet. "Oh, oh! do not leave me--not for a moment," cried Photogen, straining his eyes to keep her face in sight through the darkness. "Be quiet, or they will hear you," she returned. "The wind is from the south, and they cannot scent us. I have found out all about that. Ever since the dear dark came, I have been amusing myself with them, getting every now and then just into the edge of the wind, and letting one have a sniff of me."