ast,
was very tired. At length, both equally exhausted, neither was able to
help the other. As if by consent they stopped. Embracing each the other,
they stood in the midst of the wide grassy land, neither of them able to
move a step, each supported only by the leaning weakness of the other,
each ready to fall if the other should move. But while the one grew
weaker still, the other had begun to grow stronger. When the tide of the
night began to ebb, the tide of the day began to flow; and now the sun
was rushing to the horizon, borne upon its foaming billows. And even as
he came, Photogen revived. At last the sun shot up into the air, like a
bird from the hand of the Father of Lights. Nycteris gave a cry of pain,
and hid her face in her hands.

"Oh me!" she sighed; "I am _so_ frightened! The terrible light stings
so!"

But the same instant, through her blindness, she heard Photogen give a
low exultant laugh, and the next felt herself caught up: she who all
night long had tended and protected him like a child, was now in his
arms, borne along like a baby, with her head lying on his shoulder. But
she was the greater, for, suffering more, she feared nothing.

XIX.--THE WERE-WOLF.

At the very moment when Photogen caught up Nycteris, the telescope of
Watho was angrily sweeping the table-land. She swung it from her in
rage, and running to her room, shut herself up. There she anointed
herself from top to toe with a certain ointment; shook down her long red
hair, and tied it round her waist; then began to dance, whirling round
and round, faster and faster, growing angrier and angrier, until she was
foaming at the mouth with fury. When Falca went looking for her, she
could not find her anywhere.

As the sun rose, the wind slowly changed and went round, until it blew
straight from the north. Photogen and Nycteris were drawing near the
edge of the forest, Photogen still carrying Nycteris, when she moved a
little on his shoulder uneasily, and murmured in his ear,

"I smell a wild beast--that way, the way the wind is coming."

[Illustration: "IT TUMBLED HEELS OVER HEAD WITH A GREAT THUD."]

Photogen turned, looked back toward the castle, and saw a dark speck on
the plain. As he looked, it grew larger: it was coming across the grass
with the speed of the wind. It came nearer and nearer. It looked long
and low, but that might be because it was running at a great stretch. He
set Nycteris down under a tree, in the black shado