rward with her outstretched hands
against the wall. Something gave way, and she tumbled out of the cavern.

IX.--OUT.

But, alas! _out_ was very much like _in_, for the same enemy, the
darkness, was here also. The next moment, however, came a great
gladness--a fire-fly, which had wandered in from the garden. She saw the
tiny spark in the distance. With slow pulsing ebb and throb of light, it
came pushing itself through the air, drawing nearer and nearer, with
that motion which more resembles swimming than flying, and the light
seemed the source of its own motion.

"My lamp! my lamp!" cried Nycteris. "It is the shiningness of my lamp,
which the cruel darkness drove out. My good lamp has been waiting for me
here all the time! It knew I would come after it, and waited to take me
with it."

She followed the fire-fly, which, like herself, was seeking the way out.
If it did not know the way, it was yet light; and because all light is
one, any light may serve to guide to more light. If she was mistaken in
thinking it the spirit of her lamp, it was of the same spirit as her
lamp--and had wings. The gold-green jet boat, driven by light, went
throbbing before her through a long narrow passage. Suddenly it rose
higher, and the same moment Nycteris fell upon an ascending stair. She
had never seen a stair before, and found going up a curious sensation.
Just as she reached what seemed the top, the fire-fly ceased to shine,
and so disappeared. She was in utter darkness once more. But when we are
following the light, even its extinction is a guide. If the fire-fly had
gone on shining, Nycteris would have seen the stair turn, and would have
gone up to Watho's bedroom; whereas now, feeling straight before her,
she came to a latched door, which after a good deal of trying she
managed to open--and stood in a maze of wondering perplexity, awe, and
delight. What was it? Was it outside of her, or something taking place
in her head? Before her was a very long and very narrow passage, broken
up she could not tell how, and spreading out above and on all sides to
an infinite height and breadth and distance--as if space itself were
growing out of a trough. It was brighter than her rooms had ever been,
brighter than if six alabaster lamps had been burning in them. There was
a quantity of strange streaking and mottling about it, very different
from the shapes on her walls. She was in a dream of pleasant perplexity,
of delightful bewilderment.