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“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.”

“Oh, horrible!” cried Photogen. “I hope you will not insist on doing so any more. What was the consequence?”

“Always, the very instant, he turned with flashing eyes, and hounded towards me–only he could not see me, you must remember. But my eyes being so much better than his, I could see him perfectly well, and would run away round him until I scented him, and then I knew he could not find me anyhow. If the wind were to turn, and run the other way now, there might be a whole army of them down upon us, leaving no room to keep out of their way. You had better come.”

She took him by the hand. He yielded and rose, and she led him away. But his steps were feeble, and as the night went on, he seemed more and more ready to sink.

“Oh dear! I am so tired! and so frightened!” he would say.

“Lean on me,” Nycteris would return, putting her arm round him, or patting his cheek. “Take a few steps more. Every step away from the castle is clear gain. Lean harder on me. I am quite strong and well now.”

So they went on. The piercing night-eyes of Nycteris descried not a few pairs of green ones gleaming like holes in the darkness, and many a round she made to keep far out of their way; but she never said to Photogen she saw them. Carefully she kept him off the uneven places, and on the softest and smoothest of the grass, talking to him gently all the way as they went–of the lovely flowers and the stars–how comfortable the flowers looked, down in their green beds, and how happy the stars up in their blue beds!