The Coming Race by Baron Lytton Edward Bulwer Lytton (best books to read for beginners TXT) 📕

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 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. Tomorrow 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