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 defence. When he would spur his horse into the midst of
a herd of bulls, carrying only his bow and his short sword, or shoot
an arrow into a herd, and go after it as if to reclaim it for a
runaway shaft, arriving in time to follow it with a spear-thrust
before the wounded animal knew which way to charge, Fargu thought with
terror how it would be when he came to know the temptation of the
huddle-spot leopards, and the knife-clawed lynxes, with which the
forest was haunted. For the boy had been so steeped in the sun, from
childhood so saturated with his influence, that he looked upon every
danger from a sovereign height of courage. When, therefore, he 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, and in the presence of
Fargu 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.




CHAPTER VII.

HOW NYCTERIS GREW.