The Coming Race - Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton (free ereaders txt) 📗

open window and alighted on the couch beside me. I
was always pleased with the visits of a child, in whose
society, if humbled, I was less eclipsed than in that of Ana
who had completed their education and matured their
understanding. And as I was permitted to wander forth with him
for my companion, and as I longed to revisit the spot in which
I had descended into the nether world, I hastened to ask him if
he were at leisure for a stroll beyond the streets of the city.
His countenance seemed to me graver than usual as he replied,
"I came hither on purpose to invite you forth."

We soon found ourselves in the street, and had not got far from
the house when we encountered five or six young Gy-ei, who were
returning from the fields with baskets full of flowers, and
chanting a song in chorus as they walked. A young Gy sings
more often than she talks. They stopped on seeing us,
accosting Taee with familiar kindness, and me with the
courteous gallantry which distinguishes the Gy-ei in their
manner towards our weaker sex.

And here I may observe that, though a virgin Gy is so frank in
her courtship to the individual she favours, there is nothing
that approaches to that general breadth and loudness of manner
which those young ladies of the Anglo-Saxon race, to whom the
149distinguished epithet of 'fast' is accorded, exhibit towards
young gentlemen whom they do not profess to love. No; the
bearing of the Gy-ei towards males in ordinary is very much
that of high-bred men in the gallant societies of the upper
world towards ladies whom they respect but do not woo;
deferential, complimentary, exquisitely polished- what we
should call 'chivalrous.'

Certainly I was a little put out by the number of civil things
addressed to my 'amour propre,' which were said to me by those
courteous young Gy-ei. In the world I came from, a man would
have thought himself aggrieved, treated with irony, 'chaffed'
(if so vulgar a slang word may be allowed on the authority of
the popular novelists who use it so freely), when one fair Gy
complimented me on the freshness of my complexion, another on
the choice of colours in my dress, a third, with a sly smile,
on the conquests I had made at Aph-Lin's entertainment. But I
knew already that all such language was what the French call
'banal,' and did but express in the female mouth, below earth,
that sort of desire to pass for amiable with the opposite sex
which, above earth, arbitrary custom and hereditary
transmission demonstrate by the mouth of the male. And just as
a high-bred young lady, above earth, habituated to such
compliments, feels that she cannot, without impropriety, return
them, nor evince any great satisfaction at receiving them; so I
who had learned polite manners at the house of so wealthy and
dignified a Minister of that nation, could but smile and try to
look pretty in bashfully disclaiming the compliments showered
upon me. While we were thus talking, Taee's sister, it seems,
had seen us from the upper rooms of the Royal Palace at the
entrance of the town, and, precipitating herself on her wings,
alighted in the midst of the group.

Singling me out, she said, though still with the inimitable
deference of manner which I have called 'chivalrous,' yet not
without a certain abruptness of tone which, as addressed to the
weaker sex, Sir Philip Sydney might have termed 'rustic,' "Why
do you never come to see us?"
150
While I was deliberating on the right answer to give to this
unlooked-for question, Taee said quickly and sternly, "Sister,
you forget- the stranger is of my sex. It is not for persons
of my sex, having due regard for reputation and modesty, to
lower themselves by running after the society of yours."

This speech was received with evident approval by the young
Gy-ei in general; but Taee's sister looked greatly abashed.
Poor thing!- and a PRINCESS too!

Just at this moment a shadow fell on the space between me and
the group; and, turning round, I beheld the chief magistrate
coming close upon us, with the silent and stately pace peculiar
to the Vril-ya. At the sight of his countenance, the same
terror which had seized me when I first beheld it returned. On
that brow, in those eyes, there was that same indefinable
something which marked the being of a race fatal to our own-
that strange expression of serene exemption from our common
cares and passions, of conscious superior power, compassionate
and inflexible as that of a judge who pronounces doom. I
shivered, and, inclining low, pressed the arm of my
child-friend, and drew him onward silently. The Tur placed
himself before our path, regarded me for a moment without
speaking, then turned his eye quietly on his daughter's face,
and, with a grave salutation to her and the other Gy-ei, went
through the midst of the group,- still without a word.


Chapter XXVIII.


When Taee and I found ourselves alone on the broad road that
lay between the city and the chasm through which I had
descended into this region beneath the light of the stars and
sun, I said under my breath, "Child and friend, there is a look
151in your father's face which appals me. I feel as if, in its
awful tranquillity, I gazed upon death."

Taee did not immediately reply. He seemed agitated, and as if
debating with himself by what words to soften some unwelcome
intelligence. At last he said, "None of the Vril-ya fear
death: do you?"

"The dread of death is implanted in the breasts of the race to
which I belong. We can conquer it at the call of duty, of
honour, of love. We can die for a truth, for a native land,
for those who are dearer to us than ourselves. But if death do
really threaten me now and here, where are such counteractions
to the natural instinct which invests with awe and terror the
contemplation of severance between soul and body?"

Taee looked surprised, but there was great tenderness in his
voice as he replied, "I will tell my father what you say. I
will entreat him to spare your life."

"He has, then, already decreed to destroy it?"

"'Tis my sister's fault or folly," said Taee, with some
petulance. "But she spoke this morning to my father; and,
after she had spoken, he summoned me, as a chief among the
children who are commissioned to destroy such lives as threaten
the community, and he said to me, 'Take thy vril staff, and
seek the stranger who has made himself dear to thee. Be his
end painless and prompt.'"

"And," I faltered, recoiling from the child- "and it is, then,
for my murder that thus treacherously thou hast invited me
forth? No, I cannot believe it. I cannot think thee guilty
of such a crime."

"It is no crime to slay those who threaten the good of the
community; it would be a crime to slay the smallest insect that
cannot harm us."

"If you mean that I threaten the good of the community because
your sister honours me with the sort of preference which a
child may feel for a strange plaything, it is not necessary to
kill me. Let me return to the people I have left, and by the
chasm through which I descended. With a slight help from you I
152might do so now. You, by the aid of your wings, could fasten
to the rocky ledge within the chasm the cord that you found,
and have no doubt preserved. Do but that; assist me but to the
spot from which I alighted, and I vanish from your world for
ever, and as surely as if I were among the dead."

"The chasm through which you descended! Look round; we stand
now on the very place where it yawned. What see you? Only
solid rock. The chasm was closed, by the orders of Aph-Lin, as
soon as communication between him and yourself was established
in your trance, and he learned from your own lips the nature of
the world from which you came. Do you not remember when Zee
bade me not question you as to yourself or your race? On
quitting you that day, Aph-Lin accosted me, and said, 'No path
between the stranger's home and ours should be left unclosed,
or the sorrow and evil of his home may descend to ours. Take
with thee the children of thy band, smite the sides of the
cavern with your vril staves till the fall of their fragments
fills up every chink through which a gleam of our lamps could
force its way.'"

As the child spoke, I stared aghast at the blind rocks before
me. Huge and irregular, the granite masses, showing by charred
discolouration where they had been shattered, rose from footing
to roof-top; not a cranny!

"All hope, then, is gone," I murmured, sinking down on the
craggy wayside, "and I shall nevermore see the sun." I covered
my face with my hands, and prayed to Him whose presence I had
so often forgotten when the heavens had declared His handiwork.
I felt His presence in the depths of the nether earth, and
amidst the world of the grave. I looked up, taking comfort and
courage from my prayers, and, gazing with a quiet smile into
the face of the child, said, "Now, if thou must slay me,
strike."

Taee shook his head gently. "Nay," he said, "my father's
request is not so formally made as to leave me no choice. I
will speak with him, and may prevail to save thee. Strange
153that thou shouldst have that fear of death which we thought was
only the instinct of the inferior creatures, to whom the
convictions of another life has not been vouchsafed. With us,
not an infant knows such a fear. Tell me, my dear Tish," he
continued after a little pause, "would it reconcile thee more
to departure from this form of life to that form which lies on
the other side of the moment called 'death,' did I share thy
journey? If so, I will ask my father whether it be allowable
for me to go with thee. I am one of our generation destined to
emigrate, when of age for it, to some regions unknown within
this world. I would just as soon emigrate now to regions
unknown, in another world. The All-Good is no less there than
here. Where is he not?"

"Child," said I, seeing by Taee's countenance that he spoke in
serious earnest, "it is crime in thee to slay me; it were a
crime not less in me to say, 'Slay thyself.' The All-Good
chooses His own time to give us life, and his own time to take
it away. Let us go back. If, on speaking with thy father, he
decides on my death, give me the longest warning in thy power,
so that I may pass the interval in self-preparation."


Chapter XXIX.


In the midst of those hours set apart for sleep and
constituting the night of the Vril-ya, I was awakened from the
disturbed slumber into which I had not long fallen, by a hand
on my shoulder. I started and beheld Zee standing beside me.

154"Hush," she said in a whisper; let no one hear us. Dost thou
think that I have ceased to watch over thy safety because I
could not win thy love? I have seen Taee. He has not prevailed
with his father, who had meanwhile conferred with the three
sages who, in doubtful matters, he takes into council, and by
their advice