commandment Fargu was anxiously careful not to break;
for although he would not have trembled had a whole herd of bulls come
down upon him, charging at full speed across the level, and not an arrow
left in his quiver, he was more than afraid of his mistress. So that, as
Photogen grew older, Fargu began to tremble, for he found it steadily
growing harder to restrain him. He did not know what fear was, and that
not because he did not know danger; for he had had a severe laceration
from the razor-like tusk of a boar--whose spine, however, he had severed
with one blow of his hunting-knife before Fargu could reach him with
defense.

When the boy was approaching his sixteenth year, Fargu ventured to beg
of Watho that she would lay her commands upon the youth himself, and
release him from responsibility for him. One might as soon hold a
tawny-maned lion as Photogen, he said. Watho called the youth, laid her
command upon him never to be out when the rim of the sun should touch
the horizon, accompanying the prohibition with hints of consequences
none the less awful that they were obscure. Photogen listened
respectfully, but knowing neither the taste of fear nor the temptation
of the night, her words were but sounds to him.

VII.--HOW NYCTERIS GREW.

The little education she intended Nycteris to have, Watho gave her by
word of mouth. Not meaning she should have light enough to read by, she
never put a book in her hands. Nycteris, however, saw so much better
than Watho imagined, that the light she gave her was quite sufficient,
and she managed to coax Falca into teaching her the letters, after which
she taught herself to read, and Falca now and then brought her a child's
book. But her chief pleasure was in her instrument. Her very fingers
loved it, and would wander about over its keys like feeding sheep. She
was not unhappy. She knew nothing of the world except the tomb in which
she dwelt, and had some pleasure in everything she did. But she desired,
nevertheless, something more or different. She did not know what it was,
and the nearest she could come to expressing it to herself was--that she
wanted more room. Watho and Falca would go from her beyond the shine of
the lamp, and come again; therefore surely there must be more room
somewhere. As often as she was left alone she would fall to poring over
the colored bas-reliefs on the walls. These were intended to represent
various of the powers of Nature under allegorical similit