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

he has ordained thee to perish when the world
re-awakens to life. I will save thee. Rise and dress."

Zee pointed to a table by the couch on which I saw the clothes
I had worn on quitting the upper world, and which I had
exchanged subsequently for the more picturesque garments of the
Vril-ya. The young Gy then moved towards the casement and
stepped into the balcony, while hastily and wonderingly I
donned my own habiliments. When I joined her on the balcony,
her face was pale and rigid. Taking me by the hand, she said
softly, "See how brightly the art of the Vril-ya has lighted up
the world in which they dwell. To-morrow the world will be
dark to me." She drew me back into the room without waiting for
my answer, thence into the corridor, from which we descended
into the hall. We passed into the deserted streets and along
the broad upward road which wound beneath the rocks. Here,
where there is neither day nor night, the Silent Hours are
unutterably solemn- the vast space illumined by mortal skill is
so wholly without the sight and stir of mortal life. Soft as
were our footsteps, their sounds vexed the ear, as out of
harmony with the universal repose. I was aware in my own mind,
though Zee said it not, that she had decided to assist my
return to the upper world, and that we were bound towards the
place from which I had descended. Her silence infected me and
commanded mine. And now we approached the chasm. It had been
re-opened; not presenting, indeed, the same aspect as when I
had emerged from it, but through that closed wall of rock
before which I had last stood with Taee, a new clift had been
riven, and along its blackened sides still glimmered sparks and
smouldered embers. My upward gaze could not, however,
155penetrate more than a few feet into the darkness of the hollow
void, and I stood dismayed, and wondering how that grim ascent
was to be made.

Zee divined my doubt. "Fear not," said she, with a faint
smile; "your return is assured. I began this work when the
Silent Hours commenced, and all else were asleep; believe that
I did not paused till the path back into thy world was clear.
I shall be with thee a little while yet. We do not part until
thou sayest, 'Go, for I need thee no more.'"

My heart smote me with remorse at these words. "Ah!" I exclaimed,
"would that thou wert of my race or I of thine, then I should
never say, "I need thee no more.'"

"I bless thee for those words, and I shall remember them when
thou art gone," answered the Gy, tenderly.

During this brief interchange of words, Zee had turned away
from me, her form bent and her head bowed over her breast.
Now, she rose to the full height of her grand stature, and
stood fronting me. While she had been thus averted from my
gaze, she had lighted up the circlet that she wore round her
brow, so that it blazed as if it were a crown of stars. Not
only her face and her form, but the atmosphere around, were
illumined by the effulgence of the diadem.

"Now," said she, "put thine arm around me for the first and
last time. Nay, thus; courage, and cling firm."

As she spoke her form dilated, the vast wings expanded.
Clinging to her, I was borne aloft through the terrible chasm.
The starry light from her forehead shot around and before us
through the darkness. Brightly and steadfastly, and swiftly as
an angel may soar heavenward with the soul it rescues from the
grave, went the flight of the Gy, till I heard in the distance
the hum of human voices, the sounds of human toil. We halted
on the flooring of one of the galleries of the mine, and
beyond, in the vista, burned the dim, feeble lamps of the
miners.
156
Then I released my hold. The Gy kissed me on my forehead,
passionately, but as with a mother's passion, and said, as the
tears gushed from her eyes, "Farewell for ever. Thou wilt not
let me go into thy world- thou canst never return to mine. Ere
our household shake off slumber, the rocks will have again
closed over the chasm not to be re-opened by me, nor perhaps by
others, for ages yet unguessed. Think of me sometimes, and
with kindness. When I reach the life that lies beyond this
speck in time, I shall look round for thee. Even there, the
world consigned to thyself and thy people may have rocks and
gulfs which divide it from that in which I rejoin those of my
race that have gone before, and I may be powerless to cleave
way to regain thee as I have cloven way to lose."

Her voice ceased. I heard the swan-like sough of her wings,
and saw the rays of her starry diadem receding far and farther
through the gloom.

I sate myself down for some time, musing sorrowfully; then I
rose and took my way with slow footsteps towards the place in
which I heard the sounds of men. The miners I encountered were
strange to me, of another nation than my own. They turned to
look at me with some surprise, but finding that I could not
answer their brief questions in their own language, they
returned to their work and suffered me to pass on unmolested.
In fine, I regained the mouth of the mine, little troubled by
other interrogatories;- save those of a friendly official to
whom I was known, and luckily he was too busy to talk much with
me. I took care not to return to my former lodging, but
hastened that very day to quit a neighbourhood where I could
not long have escaped inquiries to which I could have given no
satisfactory answers. I regained in safety my own country, in
which I have been long peacefully settled, and engaged in
practical business, till I retired on a competent fortune,
three years ago. I have been little invited and little tempted
to talk of the rovings and adventures of my youth. Somewhat
157disappointed, as most men are, in matters connected with
household love and domestic life, I often think of the young Gy
as I sit alone at night, and wonder how I could have rejected
such a love, no matter what dangers attended it, or by what
conditions it was restricted. Only, the more I think of a
people calmly developing, in regions excluded from our sight
and deemed uninhabitable by our sages, powers surpassing our
most disciplined modes of force, and virtues to which our life,
social and political, becomes antagonistic in proportion as our
civilisation advances,- the more devoutly I pray that ages may
yet elapse before there emerge into sunlight our inevitable
destroyers. Being, however, frankly told by my physician that
I am afflicted by a complaint which, though it gives little
pain and no perceptible notice of its encroachments, may at any
moment be fatal, I have thought it my duty to my fellow-men to
place on record these forewarnings of The Coming Race.

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Publication Date: 07-05-2010

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