 CHAPTER XXIII I confess that my conversation with Apolin, and the extreme coolness with which he stated his inability to control the dangerous caprice of his daughter, and treated the idea of the reduction into a cinder to which her amorous flame might expose my too seductive person, took away the pleasure I should otherwise have had in the contemplation of my host's country seat, and the astonishing perfection of the machinery by which his farming operations were conducted. The house differed in appearance from the massive and somber building which Apolin inhabited in the city, and which seemed akin to the rocks out of which the city itself had been hewn into shape. The walls of the country seat were composed by trees placed a few feet apart from each other, the interstices being filled in with the transparent metallic substance which serves the purpose of glass among the ana. These trees were all in flower, and the effect was very pleasing if not in the best taste. We were received at the porch by lifelike Atamata who conducted us into a chamber the like to which I never saw before, but have often on summer days dreamily imagined. It was a bower, half room, half garden. The walls were one mass of climbing flowers. The open spaces which we call windows, and in which here the metallic surfaces were slided back, commanded various views. Some of the wide landscape with its lakes and rocks, some of small limited expanses answering to our conservatories, filled with tears of flowers. Along the sides of the room were flower beds, interspersed with cushions for repose. In the center of the floor was a cistern and a fountain of that liquid light which I have presumed to be nafta. It was luminous and of a rosy-eight hue. It sufficed without lamps to light up the room with the subdued radiance. All around the fountain was carpeted with the soft, deep lichen, not green. I have never seen that color in the vegetation of this country, but a quiet brown on which the eye reposes with the same sense of relief as that with which in the upper world it reposes on green. In the outlets upon flowers, which I have compared to our conservatories, there were singing birds innumerable which, while we remained in the room, sang in those harmonies of tune to which they are in these parts so wonderfully trained. The roof was open. The whole scene had charms for every sense. Music from the birds, fragrance from the flowers, and varied beauty to the eye at every aspect. About all was a voluptuous repose. What a place, my thought, for a honeymoon, if a ghee-bride were a little less formidably armed, not only with the rights of women, but with the powers of man. But when one thinks of a ghee so learned, so tall, so stately, so much above the standard of the creature we call woman, as was Zee, no, even if I had felt no fear of being reduced to a cinder, it is not of her I should have dreamed in that bower so constructed for dreams of poetic love. The automata reappeared, serving one of those delicious liquids which formed the innocent wines of the Vriliya. Truly, said I, this is a charming residence, and I can scarcely conceive why you do not settle yourself here, instead of amid the gloomier abodes of the city. As responsible to the community for the administration of light, I am compelled to reside chiefly in the city, and can only come hither for short intervals. But since I understand from you that no honors are attached to your office, and it involves some trouble, why do you accept it? Each of us abased without question the command of the tour. He said, be it requested that Appalin shall be the commissioner of light, so I had no choice. But having held the office now for a long time, the cares which were at first unwelcome have become, if not pleasing, at least endurable. We are all formed by custom. Even the difference of our race from the savage is but the transmitted continuance of custom, which becomes, through hereditary descent, part and parcel of our nature. You see, there are Anna, who even reconciled themselves to the responsibilities of chief magistrate, but no one would do so if his duties had not been rendered so light, or if there were any questions as to compliance with his requests. Not even if you thought the requests unwise or unjust? We do not allow ourselves to think so, and indeed everything goes on as if each and all govern themselves according to immemorial custom. When the chief magistrate dies or retires, how do you provide for his successor? The one who has discharged the duties of chief magistrate for many years is the best person to choose one by whom those duties may be understood, and he generally names his successor. His son, perhaps? Seldom that, for it is not an office any one desires or seeks, and a father naturally hesitates to constrain his son. But if the tour himself declined to make a choice, for fear it might be supposed that he owed some grudge to the person on whom his choice would settle, then there are three of the College of Sages who draw lots among themselves which shall have the power to elect the chief. We consider that the judgment of one on of ordinary capacity is better than the judgment of three or more, however wise they may be. For among three there would probably be disputes, and where there are disputes, passion clouds judgment. The worst choice made by one who has no motive in choosing wrong is better than the best choice made by many who have many motives for not choosing right. You reverse in your policy the maxims adopted in my country. Are you all in your country satisfied with your governors? All certainly not, the governors that most please some are sure to be the most displeasing to others. Then our system is better than yours. For you it may be, but according to our system a tish could not be reduced to a cinder if a female compelled him to marry her, and as a tish I sigh to return to my native world. Take courage, my dear little guest. Ze can't compel you to marry her. She can only entice you to do so. Don't be enticed. Come and look round my domain. We went forth into a close bordered with sheds. For though the anah keep no stock for food, there are some animals which they rear from milking and others for shearing. The former have no resemblance to our cows nor the latter to our sheep nor do I believe such species exist amongst them. They use the milk of three varieties of animal. One resembles the antelope, but is much larger, being as tall as a camel. The other two are smaller, and though differing somewhat from each other resemble no creature I ever saw on earth. They are very sleek and of rounded proportions, their color that of dappled deer with very mild countenances and beautiful dark eyes. The milk of these three creatures differs in richness and taste. It is usually diluted with water and flavored with the juice of a peculiar and perfumed fruit, and in itself is very nutritious and palatable. The animal whose flee serves them for clothing and many other purposes is more like the Italian she-goat than any other creature, but is considerably larger, has no horns, and is free from the displeasing odor of our goats. Its fleece is not thick, but very long and fine. It varies in color, but is never white, more generally of a slate-like or lavender hue. For clothing it is usually worn dyed to suit the taste of the wearer. These animals were exceedingly tame, and were treated with extraordinary care and affection by the children, chiefly female, who tended them. We then went through vast storehouses filled with grains and fruits. I may here observe that the main staple of food among these people consists, firstly, of a kind of corn much larger in ear than our wheat, and which by culture is perpetually being brought into new varieties of flavor, and secondly, of a fruit of about the size of a small orange which, when gathered, is hard and bitter. It is stowed away for many months in their warehouses, and then becomes succulent and tender. Its juice, which is of dark red color, enters into most of their sauces. They have many kinds of fruit of the nature of the olive, from which delicious oils are extracted. They have a plant somewhat resembling the sugarcane, but its juices are less sweet and of a delicate perfume. They have no bees nor honey-making insects, but they make much use of a sweet gum that oozes from a coniferous plant, not unlike the oracaria. Their soil teams also with esculent roots and vegetables, which it is the aim of their culture to improve and vary to the utmost. And I never remember any meal among this people, however it might be confined to the family household, in which some delicate novelty in such articles of food was not introduced. In fine, as I before observed, their cookery is exquisite, so diversified and nutritious, that one does not miss animal food. And their own physical forms suffice to show that with them, at least, meat is not required for superior production of muscular fiber. They have no grapes. The drinks extracted from their fruits are innocent and refreshing. Their staple beverage, however, is water, in the choice of which they are very fastidious, distinguishing at once the slightest impurity. My younger son takes great pleasure in augmenting our produce, set up a l'in as we pass through the storehouses, and therefore will inherit these lands which constitute the chief part of my wealth. To my elder son such inheritance would be a great trouble and affliction. Are there many sons among you who think the inheritance of vast wealth would be a great trouble and affliction? Certainly, there are indeed very few of the Vrelia who do not consider that a fortune much above the average is a heavy burden. We are rather a lazy people after the age of childhood, and do not like undergoing more cares than we can help, and great wealth does give its owner many cares. For instance, it marks us out for public offices, which none of us like and none of us can refuse. It necessitates our taking a continued interest in the affairs of any of our poorer countrymen, so that we may anticipate their wants and see that none fall into poverty. There is an old proverb amongst us which says, the poor man's need is the rich man's shame. Pardon me if I interrupt you for a moment. You allow that some, even of the Vrelia, know want and need relief? If by want you mean the destitution that prevails in a cum push, that is impossible with us, unless an aunt has, by some extraordinary process, got rid of all his means, cannot or will not emigrate, and has either tired out the affectionate aid of his relations or personal friends, or refuses to accept it. Well, then, does he not supply the place of an infant or automaton, and become a laborer, a servant? No, then we regard him as an unfortunate person of unsound reason and place him at the expense of the state in a public building where every comfort and every luxury that can mitigate his affliction are lavished upon him, but an aunt does not like to be considered out of his mind, and therefore such cases occur so seldom that the public building I speak of is now a deserted ruin, and the last inmate of it was an aunt whom I recollect to have seen in my childhood. He did not seem conscious of loss of reason and wrote globes, poetry. When I spoke of wants, I meant such wants as an aunt with desires larger than his means sometimes entertains, for expensive singing birds or bigger houses or country gardens, and the obvious way to satisfy such wants is to buy of him something that he sells. Hence, an aunt like myself, who are very rich, are obliged to buy a great many things they do not require and live on a very large scale where they might prefer to live on a small one. For instance, a great size of my house in the town is a source of much trouble to my wife and even to myself, but I am compelled to have it thus incomodiously large because as the richest aunt of the community I am appointed to entertain the strangers from the other communities when they visit us, which they do in great crowds twice a year when certain periodical entertainments are held and when relations scattered throughout all the realms of the Vriliya joyfully reunite for a time. This hospitality, on a scale so extensive, is not to my taste and therefore I should have been happier had I been less rich. But we must all bear the lot assigned to us in this short passage of time that we call life. After all, what are a hundred years more or less to the ages through which we must pass hereafter? Luckily, I have one son who likes great wealth. It is a rare exception to the general rule and I own I cannot myself understand it. After this conversation I sought to return to the subject of the which continued to weigh on my heart, namely the chances of escape from Z. But my host politely declined to renew that topic and summoned our airboat. On our way back we were met by Z who, having found us gone on her return from the College of Sages, had unfurled her wings and flown in search of us. Her grand but to me unalluring countenance, brightened as she beheld me, and poising herself beside the boat on her large, outspread plumes, she said reproachfully to Apalyn. O father, was it right in you to hazard the life of your guest in a vehicle to which he is so unaccustomed? He might by an auspicious movement fall over the side, and alas he is not like us. He has no wings. It were death to him to fall, dear one." She added, accosting my shrinking self in a softer voice. Have you no thought of me that you should thus hazard a life which has become almost a part of mine? Never again be thus rash, unless I am thy companion. What terror thou hast stricken into me? I glanced furtively at Apalyn, expecting at least that he would indignantly reprove his daughter for expressions of anxiety and affection which, under all the circumstances, would, in the world above ground, be considered immodest in the lips of a young female addressed to a male not a fianc to her even if of the same rank as herself. But so confirmed are the rights of females in that region, and so absolutely foremost among those rights do females claim the privilege of courtship that Apalyn would no more have thought of reproving his virgin daughter than he would have thought of obeying the orders of the tour. In that country, custom, as he implied, is all in all. He answered mildly, Zee, the tish is in no danger, and it is my belief that he can take very good care of himself. I would rather that he let me charge myself with his care. Oh, heart of my heart! It was in the thought of thy danger that I first felt how much I loved thee. Never did man feel in such a false position as I did. These words were spoken loud in the hearing of Zee's father, in the hearing of the child who steered. I blushed with shame for them, and for her, and could not help for plying angrily. Zee, either you mock me, which, as your father's guest, misbecomes you, or the words you utter are improper for a maiden gie to address even to an on of her own race, if he has not wooed her with the consent of her parents. How much more improper to address them to a tish who has never presumed to solicit your affections and who can never regard you with other sentiments than those of reverence and awe. Apolin made me a covert sign of approbation, but said nothing. Be not so cruel, exclaimed Zee, still in sonorous accents. Can love command itself where it is truly felt? Do you suppose that a maiden gie will conceal a sentiment that it elevates her to feel? What a country you must have come from! Here Apolin gently interposed, saying, Among the tisha the rites of your sex do not appear to be established, and at all events my guest may converse with you more freely if unchecked by the presence of others. To this remark Zee made no reply, but darting on me a tender reproachful glance agitated her wings and fled homeward. I had counted at least on some aid from my host, I said bitterly, in the perils to which his own daughter exposes me. I gave you the best aid I could to contradict a gie in her love affairs is to confirm her purpose. She allows no counsel to come between her and her affections. On a lighting from the airboat a child accosted Apolin in the hall with a request that he would be present at the funeral obsequies of a relation who had recently departed from that nether world. Now I had never seen a burial place or cemetery amongst this people, and glad to see even so melancholy an occasion to defer an encounter with Zee I asked Apolin if I might be permitted to witness with him the internment of his relation. Unless indeed it were regarded as one of those sacred ceremonies to which a stranger to their race might not be admitted. The departure of an on to a happier world, answered my host, when as in the case of my kinsman he has lived so long in this as to have lost pleasure in it, is rather a cheerful though quiet festival than a sacred ceremony, and you may accompany me if you will. Proceeded by the child messenger we walked up the main street to a house at some little distance, and entering the hall were conducted to a room on the ground floor where we found several persons assembled round a couch on which was laid the deceased. It was an old man, who had, as I was told, lived beyond his hundred and thirtieth year. To judge by the calm smile on his countenance he had passed away without suffering. One of the sons, who was now the head of the family and who seemed in vigorous middle life, though he was considerably more than seventy, stepped forward with a cheerful face and told Apolin that the day before he died his father had seen in a dream his departed ghee and was eager to be reunited to her and restored to youth beneath the nearer smile of the all good. While these two were talking my attention was drawn to a dark metallic substance at the father end of the room. It was about twenty feet in length, narrow in proportion, and all closed round, save near the roof there were small round holes through which might be seen a red light. From the interior emanated a rich and sweet perfume. And while I was conjecturing what purpose this machine was to serve, all the timepieces in the town struck the hour with their solemn musical chime. And as that sound ceased, music of a more joyous character, but still of a joy subdued and tranquil, rang throughout the chamber and from the walls beyond in a choral peel. Symphonious with the melody, those in the room lifted their voices in chant. The words of this hymn were simple. They expressed no regret, no farewell, but rather a greeting to the new world whither the deceased had preceded the living. In their language the funeral hymn is called the birth-song. Then the corpse covered by a long sediment was tenderly lifted up by six of the nearest kinfolk and born towards the dark thing I have described. I pressed forward to see what happened. A sliding door or panel at one end was lifted up. The body deposited within on a shelf. The door reclosed, a spring at the side touched. A sudden whishing, sighing sound heard from within, and low at the other end of the machine the lid fell down, and a small handful of smoldering dust dropped into a pterra placed to receive it. The son took up the pterra and said, in what I understood afterwards was the usual former words, Behold how great is the maker! To this little dust he gave form and life and soul. It needs not this little dust for him to renew form and life and soul to the beloved one we shall soon see again. Each present bowed his head and pressed his hand to his heart. Then a young female child opened a small door within the wall, and I perceived in the recess shelves on which were placed many pterrae like that which the son held save that they all had covers. With such a cover a ghee now approached the sun and placed it over the cup on which it closed with the spring. On the lid were engraven the name of the deceased and these words. Lent to us, hear the date of birth, recalled from us, hear the date of death. The closed door shut with the musical sound, and all was over. End of chapter 24 Section 17 of the Coming Race This is a Liber Rocks recording. All Liber Rocks recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LiberVox.org. Reading by Mary Rody. The Coming Race by Edward George Bulwer-Lytton. Chapter 25 Part 1 And this, said I, with my mind full of what I had witnessed, this, I presume, is your usual form of burial? Our invariable form, answered Appolin. What is it amongst your people? We enter the body-hole within the earth. What? To degrade the form you have loved and honored the wife on whose breast you have slept to the loathesomeness of corruption? But if the soul lives again, can it matter whether the body wastes within the earth or is reduced by that awful mechanism worked no doubt by the agency of Ryl into a pinch of dust? You answer well, said my host, and there is no arguing on a matter of feeling, but to me your custom is horrible and repulsive and would serve to invest death with gloomy and hideous associations. It is something, too, to my mind, to be able to preserve the token of what has been our kinsmen or friend within the abode in which we live. We thus feel more sensibly that he still lives, though not visibly so to us. But our sentiments in this, as in all things, are created by custom. Custom is not to be changed by a wise on any more than it is changed by a wise community without the greatest deliberation followed by the most earnest conviction. It is only thus that change ceases to be changeability and once made is made for good. When we regained the house, Apalin summoned some of the children in his service and sent them round to several of his friends, requesting their attendance that day, during the easy hours, to a festival in honor of his kinsmen's recall to the all good. This was the largest and gayest assembly I ever witnessed during my stay among the Anna, and was prolonged far into the silent hours. The banquet was spread in a vast chamber reserved especially for grand occasions. This differed from our entertainments, and was not without a certain resemblance to those we read of in the luxurious age of the Roman Empire. There was not one great table set out, but numerous small tables, each appropriated to eight guests. It is considered that beyond that number conversation languishes and friendship cools. The Anna never laughed loud, as I have before observed, but the cheerful ring of their voices at the various tables betokent gaiety of intercourse. As they have no stimulant drinks and are temperate in food, though so choice and dainty, the banquet itself did not last long. The table sank through the floor, and then came musical entertainments for those who liked them, many, however, wandered away. Some of the younger ascended in their wings, for the hall was ruthless, forming aerial dances. Others strolled through the various apartments, examining the curiosities with which they were stored, or formed themselves into groups for various games, the favorite of which is a complicated kind of chess played by eight persons. I mixed with the crowd, but was prevented joining in the conversation by the constant companionship of one or the other of my host's sons, appointed to keep me from obtrusive questionings. The guests, however, noticed me but slightly. They had grown accustomed to my appearance, seeing me so often in the streets, and I had ceased to excite much curiosity. To my great delight Zee avoided me, and evidently sought to my jealousy, by marked attentions to a very handsome young on, who, though as is the modest custom of the males when addressed by females, he answered with downcast eyes and blushing cheeks, and was demure and shy as young ladies new to the world are in most civilized countries, except England and America, was evidently much charmed by the tall Ghee, and ready to falter a bashful yes if she had actually proposed, fervently hoping that she would, and more and more averse to the idea of reduction to a cinder after I had seen the rapidity with which a human body can be hurried into a pinch of dust. I amused myself by watching the manners of the other young people. I had the satisfaction of observing that Zee was no singular assurter of a female's most valued rights. Wherever I turned my eyes, or lent my ears, it seemed to me that the Ghee was the wooing party, and the on the coy and reluctant one. The pretty innocent heirs which an on gave himself on being thus courted, the dexterity with which he evaded direct answers to professions of attachment, or turned into jest the flattering compliments addressed to him, would have done honour to the most accomplished coquette. Both my male chaperones were subjected greatly to these seductive influences, and both acquitted themselves with wonderful honour to their tact and self-control. I said to the elder son, who preferred mechanical employments to the management of a great property, and who was of an eminently philosophical temperament. I find it difficult to conceive how, at your age, and with all the intoxicating effects on the senses of music and lights and perfumes, you can be so cold to that impassioned young Ghee who has just left you with tears in her eyes at your cruelty. The young on replied with a sigh, Gentle Tish, the greatest misfortune in life is to marry one Ghee if you are in love with another. Oh, you are in love with another? Alas, yes! And she does not return your love? I don't know, sometimes a look, a tone, makes me hope so, but she has never plainly told me that she loves me. Have you not whispered in her own ear that you love her? Fie, what are you thinking of? What world do you come from? Could I so betray the dignity of my sex? Could I be so unondly, so lost to shame, as to own love to a Ghee who has not first owned hers to me? Pardon, I was not quite aware that you pushed the modesty of your sex so far, but does Noon ever say to a Ghee I love you till she says it first to him? I can't say that Noon has ever done so, but if he ever does, he is disgraced in the eyes of the Anna, and secretly despised by the Jayae. No Ghee, well brought up, would listen to him. She would consider that he audaciously infringed on the rights of her sex, while outraging the modesty which dignifies his own. It is very provoking, continued Theon, for she whom I love has certainly courted no one else, and I cannot but think she likes me. Sometimes I suspect that she does not court me because she fears I would ask some unreasonable settlement as to the surrender of her rights. But if so, she cannot really love me, for where a Ghee really loves she forgoes all rights. Is this young Ghee present? Oh yes, she sits yonder talking to my mother. I looked in the direction to which my eyes were thus guided, and saw a Ghee dressed in robes of bright red, which among this people is a sign that a Ghee as yet prefers a single state. She wears gray, a neutral tint, to indicate that she is looking about for a spouse. Dark purple, if she wishes to intimate, that she has made a choice. Purple and orange when she is betrothed or married. Light blue when she is divorced or a widow and would marry again. Light blue is of course seldom seen. Among a people where all are of so high a type of beauty, it is difficult to single out one as peculiarly handsome. My young friend's choice seemed to me to possess the average of good looks. But there was an expression in her face that pleased me more than did the faces of the young Jayae generally, because it looked less bold, less conscious of female rights. I observed that, while she talked to Bra, she glanced from time to time side-long at my young friend. Courage, said I, that young Ghee loves you. I, but if she shall not say so, how am I the better for her love? Your mother is aware of your attachment? Perhaps so. I never owned it to her. It would be un-only to confide such weakness to a mother. I have told my father. He may have told it again to his wife. Will you permit me to quit you for a moment and glide behind your mother and your beloved? I am sure they are talking about you. Do not hesitate. I promise that I will not allow myself to be questioned till I rejoin you. The young An pressed his hand on his heart, touched me lightly on the head, and allowed me to quit his side. I stole unobserved behind his mother and his beloved. They overheard their talk. Bra was speaking. Said she, There can be no doubt of this. Either my son, who is of marriageable age, will be decoyed into marriage with one of his many suitors, or he will join those who emigrate to a distance and we shall see him no more. If you really care for him, my dear Lo, you should propose. I do care for him, Bra, but I doubt if I could really ever win his affections. He is fond of his inventions and timepieces, and I am not like Z, but so dull that I fear I could not enter into his favourite pursuits, and then he would get tired of me, and at the end of three years divorce me, and I could never marry another, never. It is not necessary to know about timepieces, to know how to be so necessary to the happiness of an on who cares for timepieces, that he would rather give up the timepieces than divorce his ghee. You see, my dear Lo, continued Bra, that precisely because we are the stronger six, we rule the other provided we never show our strength. If you were superior to my son in making timepieces and automata, you should, as his wife, always let him suppose you thought him superior in that art to yourself. The on tacitly allows the preeminence of the ghee in all except his own special pursuit. But if she either excels him in that, or affects not to admire him for his proficiency in it, he will not love her very long. Perhaps he may even divorce her. But where a ghee really loves, she soon learns to love all that the on does. The young ghee made no answer to this address. She looked down musingly, then a smile crept over her lips, and she rose still silent, and went through the crowd till she passed by the young on who loved her. I followed her steps, but discreetly stood at a little distance while I watched them. Somewhat to my surprise, till I recollected the koi tactics among the Anna, the lover seemed to receive her advances with an air of indifference. He even moved away, but she pursued his steps, and, a little time after, both spread their wings and vanished amid the luminous space above. Just then I was accosted by the Chief Magistrate, who mingled with the crowd, distinguished by no signs of deference or homage. It so happened that I had not seen this great dignitary since the day I had entered his dominions, and recalling Apalind's words as to his terrible doubt whether or not I should be dissected, a shudder crept over me at the sight of his tranquil countenance. I hear much of you, stranger, from my son Tahi, Settatur, laying his hand politely on my bended head. He is very fond of your society, and I trust you are not displeased with the customs of our people. I muttered some unintelligible answer, which I intended to be an assurance of my gratitude for the kindness I had received from the tour and my admiration of his countrymen, but the dissecting knife gleamed before my mind's eye and choked my utterance. A softer voice said, my brother's friend must be dear to me, and looking up I saw a young gi, who might be sixteen years old, standing beside the magistrate, and gazing at me with a very benignant countenance. She had not come to her full growth, and was scarcely taller than myself, namely about five feet ten inches, and thanks to that comparatively diminutive stature I thought her the loveliest gi I had hitherto seen. I suppose something in my eyes revealed that impression, for her countenance grew yet more benignant. Thayi tells me, she said, that you have not yet learnt to accustom yourself to wings. That grieves me, for I should have liked to fly with you. Alas, I replied, I can never hope to enjoy that happiness. I am assured by Zee that the safe use of wings is a hereditary gift, and it would take generations before one of my race could poise himself in the air like a bird. Let not that thought vex you too much, replied this amiable princess. For after all, there must come a day when Zee and myself must resign our wings for ever. Perhaps when that day comes, we might be glad if the an we chose was also without wings. The two had left us, and was lost among the crowd. I began to feel at ease with Thayi's charming sister, and rather startled her by the boldness of my compliment in replying that no on she could choose would ever use his wings to fly away from her. It is so against custom for an on to say such civil things to a ghee till she has declared her passion for him and been accepted as his betrothed that the young maidens stood quite dumbfounded for a few moments. Nevertheless she did not seem displeased. At last recovering herself, she invited me to accompany her into one of the less crowded rooms and listen to the songs of the birds. I followed her steps as she glided before me, and she led me into a chamber almost deserted. A fountain of nafta was playing in the center of the room. Grounded were ranged soft divans, and the walls of the room were open on one side to an aviary in which the birds were chanting their artful chorus. The ghee seated herself on one of the divans, and I placed myself at her side. Thayi tells me, she said, that Apolin has made it the law. Note, literally, has said, in this house be it requested, words anonymous with law, as implying forcible obligation, are avoided by the singular people. Even had it been decreed by the tour that his College of Sages should dissect me, the decree would have ran blandly thus. Be it requested, that for the good of the community, the carnivorous tish be requested to submit himself to dissection. That Apolin has made it the law of his house, that you are not to be questioned as to the country you come from, or the reason why you visit us. Is it so? It is. May I, at least, without sinning against that law, ask, at least, if the jaya in your country are of the same pale color as yourself, and no taller? I do not think, O beautiful Guy, that I infringe the law of Apolin, which is more binding on myself than any one, if I answer questions so innocent. The jaya in my country are much fairer of Hugh than I am, and their average height is at least a head shorter than mine. They cannot then be so strong as the Anna amongst you, but I suppose their superior Vril force makes up for such extraordinary disadvantage of size. They do not profess the Vril force, as you know it, but still they are very powerful in my country, and an on has small chance of a happy life, if he be not more or less governed by his ghee. You speak feelingly, said Thayi's sister, in a tone of voice half sad, half petulant. You are married, of course. No, certainly not. Nor betrothed? Nor betrothed. Is it possible that no ghee has proposed to you? In my country the ghee does not propose. An on speaks first. What a strange reversal of the laws of nature, said the maiden. And what want of modesty in your sex? But have you never proposed, never loved one ghee more than another? I felt embarrassed by these ingenious questionings and said, Pardon me, but I think we are beginning to infringe upon Apalind's injunction. This much only will I answer, and then I implore you ask no more. I did once feel the preference you speak of. I did propose, and the ghee would willingly have accepted me, but her parents refused their consent. Parents, do you mean seriously to tell me that parents can interfere with the choice of their daughters? Indeed they can, and do very often. I should not like to live in that country, said the ghee simply, but I hope you will never go back to it. I bowed my head in silence. The ghee gently raised my face with her right hand, and looked into it tenderly. Stay with us, she said, stay with us, and be loved. What I might have answered, what dangers of becoming a cinder I have encountered, I still trouble to think, when the light of the nafta fountain was obscured by the shadow of wings, and Z, flying through the open roof, alighted beside us. She said, not a word, but taking my arm with her mighty hand, she drew me away as a mother draws a naughty child, and led me through the apartments to one of the corridors, on which, by the mechanism they generally prefer to stairs, we ascended to my own room. This gained, Z breathed on my forehead, touched my breast with her staff, and I was instantly plunged into a profound sleep. CHAPTER XXV. When I awoke some hours later, and heard the songs of the birds in the adjoining aviary, the remembrance of Thayi's sister, her gentle looks and caressing words vividly returned to me, and so impossible was it for one born and reared in our upper world's state of society to divest himself of ideas dictated by vanity and ambition, that I found myself instinctively building proud castles in the air. Tish though I be, thus ran my meditations, Tish though I be, it is then clear that Z is not the only gi whom my appearance can captivate. Evidently, I am loved by a princess, the first maiden of this land, the daughter of the absolute monarch whose autocracy they so idly seek to disguise by the republican title of chief magistrate. But for the sudden swoop of that horrible Z, this royal lady would have formally proposed to me, and though it may be very well for Palin, who is only a subordinate minister, a mere commissioner of light, to threaten me with destruction, if I accept his daughter's hand, yet a sovereign, whose word is law, could compel the community to abrogate any custom that forbids intermarriage with one of a strange race, and which in itself is a contradiction to their boasted equality of ranks. It is not to be supposed that his daughter, who spoke with such incredulous scorn of the interference of parents, would not have sufficient influence with her royal father to save me from the combustion to which Apalin would condemn my form. And if I were exalted by such an alliance, who knows but what the monarch might elect me as his successor? Why not, few among this indolent race of philosophers, like the burden of such greatness? All might be pleased to see the supreme power lodged in the hands of an accomplished stranger, who has experience of other and livelier forms of existence. And once chosen, what reforms I would institute, what additions to really pleasant but too monotonous life of this realm, my familiarity with the civilized nations above ground would affect. I am fond of the sports of the field. Next to war is not the chase, a king's pastime? In what varieties of strange game does this netherworld abound? How interesting to strike down creatures that were known above before the Deluge. But how, by what terrible Vril, in which, from want of hereditary transmission, I could never be a proficient? No, but by a civilized, handy breach-loader, which these ingenious mecanicians could not only make, but no doubt improve. Nay, surely I saw one in the museum. Indeed, as absolute king, I should discounten as Vril altogether, except in cases of war. Apropos of war, it is perfectly absurd to stint a people so intelligent, so rich, so well-armed, to a petty limit of territory, sufficing for ten thousand or twelve thousand families. Is not this restriction a mere philosophical crotchet? That variance with the aspiring element in human nature, such as has been partially, and with complete failure, tried in the upper world by the late Mr. Robert Owen. Of course one would not go to war with the neighboring nations as well-armed as one's own subjects, but then, what of those regions inhabited by races unacquainted with Vril, and apparently resembling in their democratic institutions my American countrymen. One might invade them without offense to the Vril nations, our allies, appropriate their territories, extending perhaps to the most distant regions of the nether-earth, and thus rule over an empire in which the sun never sets. I forgot in my enthusiasm that over those regions there was no sun to set. As for the fantastical notion against conceding fame or renown to an imminent individual, because, forsooth, bestowal of honors ensures contest in the pursuit of them, stimulates angry passions, and mars the felicity of peace, it is opposed to the very elements, not only of the human but of the brute creation, which are all, if tamable, participators in the sentiment of praise and emulation. What renown would be given to a king who thus extended his empire? I should be deemed a demigod. Thinking of that, the other fanatical notion of regulating this life by reference to one which, no doubt, we Christians firmly believe in, but never take into consideration, I resolved that enlightened philosophy compelled me to abolish a heathen religion so superstitiously at variance with modern thought and practical action. Musing over these various projects, I felt how much I should have liked at that moment to brighten my wits by a good glass of whiskey water. Not that I am habitually a spirit drinker, but certainly there are times when a little stimulant of alcoholic nature, taken with a cigar, enlivens the imagination. Yes, certainly among these herbs and fruits there would be a liquid from which one could extract a pleasant Venus alcohol. And with a stake cut off one of those elks. Ah, what a science to science, to reject the animal food which our first medical men agree in recommending to the gastric juices of mankind. One would certainly pass a more exhilarating hour of repast. Then, too, instead of those antiquated dramas performed by childish amateurs, certainly when I am king I will introduce our modern opera and a cord de ballet for which one might find, among the nations I shall conquer, young females of less formidable height and fuse than the jaillet, not armed with ryle, and not insisting upon once marrying them. I was so completely wrapped in these and similar reforms, political, social and moral, calculated to bestow on the people of the nether called the blessings of a civilization known to the races of the upper, that I did not perceive that Zee had entered the chamber till I heard a deep sigh and, raising my eyes, beheld her standing by my couch. I need not say that according to the manners of this people a ghee can without endocorum visit an on in his chamber, although an on would be referred forward and immodest to the last degree if he entered the chamber of a ghee without previously obtaining her permission to do so. Fortunately I was in the full of illimits I had worn when Zee had deposited me on the couch. Nevertheless I felt much irritated as well as shocked by her visit and asked in a rude tone what she wanted. Speak gently, beloved one, I entreat you, said Zee, for I am very unhappy. I have not slept since we parted. As due sense of your shameful conduct to me as your father's guest might well suffice to banish sleep from your eyelids. Where was the affection you pretend to have for me? Where was even that politeness on which the Virelia pride themselves, when taking advantage alike of that physical strength in which your sex in this extraordinary region excels our own, and of those detestable and unhallowed powers which the agencies of Ryl invest in your eyes and finger ends. You exposed me to humiliation before your assembled visitors. Before her royal highness, I mean the daughter of your own chief magistrate, carrying off to bed like a naughty infant and plunging me into sleep without asking my consent. Ungrateful, do you reproach me for the evidences of my love? Can you think that even if unstung by the jealousy which attends upon love till it fades away in blissful trust, when we know that the heart we have wooed is one, I could be indifferent to the perils to which the audacious overtures of that silly little child might expose you? Hold! Since you introduced the subject of perils, it perhaps does not misbecome me to say that my most imminent perils come from yourself, or at least would come if I believed in your love and accepted your addresses. Your father has told me plainly that in that case I should be consumed into a cinder with as little compunction as if I were the reptile whom Thayy blasted into ashes with the flash of his wand. Do not let that fear chill your heart to me! exclaimed Zee, dropping on her knees and absorbing my right hand in the space of her ample palm. It is true, indeed, that we too cannot wed as those of the same race wed. True that the love between us must be pure as that which, in our belief, exists between lovers who reunite in the new life beyond that boundary at which the old life ends. But is it not happiness enough to be together, wedded in mind and in heart? Listen! I have just left my father. He consents to our union on those terms. I have sufficient influence with the College of Sages to ensure their request to the Tour not to interfere with the free choice of a Ghee, provided that her wedding with one of another race be but the wedding of souls. Oh, thank you that true love needs ignoble union. It is not that I yearn only to be by your side in this life to be part and parcel of your joys and sorrows here. I ask here for a tie which will bind us for ever and for ever in the world of immortals. Do you reject me? As she spoke she knelt, and the whole character her face was changed, nothing of sternness left to its grandeur, a divine light as that of an immortal shining out from its human beauty. But she rather awed me as an angel than moved me as a woman, and after an embarrassed pause I faltered forth evasive expressions of gratitude and sought, as delicately as I could, to point out how humiliating would be my position amongst her race in the light of a husband who might never be permitted the name of father. But, said Z, this community does not constitute the whole world. No, nor do all the populations comprised in the League of Relya. For thy sake I will renounce my country and my people. We will fly together to some region where thou shalt be safe. I am strong enough to bear thee on my wings across the deserts that intervene. I am skilled enough to cleave open, amidst the rocks, valleys in which to build our home. Solitude and a hut with thee would be to me society and the universe. Or wouldst thou return to thine own world above the surface of this, exposed to the uncertain seasons, and lit but by the changeful orbs which constitute by thy description the typical character of those savage regions? I so speak the word, and I will force the way for thy return, so that I am thy companion there, though there is here but partner of thy soul, and fellow traveller with thee to the world in which there is no parting and no death. I could not but be deeply affected by the bitterness at one so pure and so impassioned, with which these words were uttered, and in a voice that would have rendered musical the roughest sounds in the rudest tongue. And for a moment it did not occur to me that I might avail myself of thee's agency to effect a safe and speedy return to the upper world. But a very brief space for reflection sufficed to show me how dishonorable and base a return for such devotion it would be to allure thus away from her own people and a home in which I had been so hospitably treated, a creature to whom our world would be so abhorrent, and for whose barren if spiritual love I could not reconcile myself to renounce the more human affection of mates less exalted above my erring self. With this sentiment of duty towards the ghee combined another of the duty towards the whole race I belong to, could I venture to introduce into the upper world a being so formidable gifted, a being that with a movement of her staff could, in less than an hour, reduce New York and its glorious coomposh into a pinch of snuff. Rob her of her staff. With her science she could easily construct another. And with the deadly lightnings that armed the slender engine her whole frame was charged. If thus dangerous to the cities and populations of the whole upper earth could she be a safe companion to myself in case her affection should be subjected to change or embittered by jealousy? These thoughts, which it takes so many words to express, passed rapidly through my brain and decided my answer. Zee, I said, in the softest tones I could command, and pressing respectful lips on the hand into whose clasp mine vanished. Zee, I can find no words to say how deeply I am touched and how highly I am honored by a love so disinterested and self- emulating. My best return to it is perfect frankness. Each nation has its customs. The customs of yours do not allow you to wed me. The customs of mine are equally opposed to such a union between those of races so widely differing. On the other hand, though not deficient in courage among my own people, or amid dangers with which I am familiar, I cannot, without a shudder of horror, think of constructing a bridal home in the heart of some dismal chaos with all the elements of nature, fire and water and mephitic gases at war with each other, and with the probability that at some moment, while you were busied in cleaving rocks or conveying drill into lamps, I should be devoured by a craic which your operations disturbed from its hiding-place. I, a mere tish, do not deserve the love of a ghee so brilliant, so learned, so potent as yourself. Yes, I do not deserve that love, for I cannot return it. Zee released my hand, rose to her feet, and turned her face away to hide her emotions. Then she glided noiselessly along the room and paused at the threshold. Suddenly, impelled as by a new thought, she returned to my side and said in a whispered tone, You told me you would speak with perfect frankness. With frankness, then, answer me this question. If you cannot love me, do you love another? Certainly I do not. You do not love Ta'i's sister? I never saw her before last night. That is no answer. Love is swifter than bril. You hesitate to tell me. Do not think it is only jealousy that prompts me to caution you, if the tourist daughter should declare love to you, if in her ignorance she confides to her father any preference that may justify his belief that she will woo you. He will have no option but to request your immediate destruction, as he is specially charged with the duty of consulting the good of the community, which could not allow the daughter of the Relya to wed a son of the Tisha in that sense of marriage which does not confide itself to union of the souls. Alas, there would then be for you no escape. She has no strength of wing to uphold you through the air. She has no science wherewith to make a home in the wilderness. Believe that here my friendship speaks and that my jealousy is silent. With these words Zee left me. And recalling those words I thought no more of succeeding to the throne of the Relya or of the political, social, and moral reforms I should institute in the capacity of absolute sovereign. CHAPTER XXVI After the conversation with Zee just recorded, I fell into a profound melancholy. The curious interest with which I had hitherto examined the life and habits of this marvelous community was at the end. I could not banish from my mind the consciousness that I was among a people who, however kind and courteous, could destroy me at any moment without scruple or compunction. The virtuous and peaceful life of the people, which, while new to me, had seemed so wholly a contrast to the contentions, the passions, the nuances of the upper world, now began to oppress me with a sense of dullness and monotony. Even the serene tranquility of the lustrous air preyed on my spirits. I longed for a change even to winter or storm or darkness. I began to feel that whatever our dreams of perfectibility our restless aspirations towards a better and higher and calmer sphere of being, we, the mortals of the upper world, are not trained or fitted to enjoy for long the very happiness of which we dream or to which we aspire. Now in this social state of the Vrelia it was singular to mark how it contrived to unite and to harmonize into one system nearly all the objects which the various philosophers of the upper world have placed before human hopes as the ideals of a utopian future. It was a state in which war with all its calamities was deemed impossible, a state in which the freedom of all and each was secured to the uttermost degree without one of those animosities which make freedom in the upper world depend on the perpetual strife of hostile parties. Here the corruption which debases democracies was as unknown as the discontents which undermined the thrones of monarchies. Equality here was not a name, it was a reality. Riches were not persecuted because they were not envied. Here those problems connected with the labors of a working class hitherto insoluble above ground and above ground conducing to such bitterness between classes were solved by a process the simplest. A distinct and separate working class was dispensed with altogether. Mechanical inventions constructed on the principles that baffled my research to ascertain worked by an agency infinitely more powerful and infinitely more easy of management than ought we have yet extracted from electricity or steam with the aid of children whose strength was never over-tasked but who loved their employment as sport and pastime, suffice to create a public wealth so devoted to the general use that not a grumbler was ever heard of. The vices that wrought our cities here had no footing. Amusements abounded, but they were all innocent. No merry-makings conduced to intoxication, to riot, to disease. Love existed and was ardent in pursuit, but its object, once secured, was faithful. The adulterer, the profligate, the harlot were phenomena so unknown in this commonwealth that even to find the words by which they were designated one would have had to search throughout an obsolete literature composed thousands of years before. They who have been students of theoretical philosophies above ground know that all these strange departures from civilized life do but realize ideas which have been broached, canvassed, ridiculed, contested for, sometimes partially tried, and still put forth in fantastic books, but have never come to practical result. Nor were these all the steps towards theoretical perfectibility which this community had made. It had been the sober belief of Descartes that the life of man could be prolonged, not indeed on this earth, to eternal duration, but to what he called the age of the patriarchs, and modestly defined to be from a hundred to a hundred and fifty years average length. Well, even this dream of sages was here fulfilled, nay more than fulfilled, for the vigor of middle life was preserved even after the term of a century was passed. With this longevity was combined a greater blessing than itself, that of continuous health. Such diseases as befell the race were removed with ease by scientific applications of that agency life-giving as life destroying which is inherent in Vril. Even this idea is not unknown above ground, though it has generally been confined to enthusiasts or charlatans and emanates from confused notions about mesmerism, odic forces, etc. Passing by such trivial contrivances as wings, which every schoolboy knows has been tried and found wanting, from the mythical or pre-historical period, I proceed to that very delicate question urged of late as essential to the perfect happiness of our human species by the two most disturbing and potential influences on upper ground society, womankind and philosophy, I mean the rights of women. Now it is allowed by jurisprudence that it is idle to talk of rights where there are not corresponding powers to enforce them. And above ground, for some reason or other, man in his physical force, in the use of weapons offensive and defensive when it come to positive personal contest, can as a rule of general application master women. But among this people there can be no doubt about the rights of women because, as I have before said, the ghee physically speaking is bigger and stronger than the an. And her will being also more resolute than his, and will being essential to the direction of the real force, she can bring to bear upon him more potently than he on herself the mystical agency which art can extract from the occult properties of nature. Therefore all that our female philosophers above ground contend for as to rights of women is conceded as a matter of course in this happy commonwealth. Besides such physical powers, the Jaya have, at least in youth, a keen desire for accomplishments and learning which exceeds that of the male, and thus they are the scholars, the professors, the learning portion in short of the community. Of course in this state of society the female establishes, as I have shown, her most valued privilege, that of choosing and courting her wedding partner. Without that privilege she would despise all the others. Now above ground we should not unreasonably apprehend that a female, thus potent and thus privileged, when she had fairly hunted us down and married us, would be very imperious and tyrannical. Not so with the Jaya. Once married, the wings once suspended, and more amiable, complacent, docile mates, more sympathetic, more sinking their loftier capacities into the study of their husbands comparatively frivolous tastes and whims, no poet could conceive in his visions of conjugal bliss. Lastly, among the more important characteristics of the Vreliya, as distinguished from our mankind, lastly and most important on the bearings of their life and the peace of their commonwells, is their universal agreement in the existence of a merciful, beneficial deity, and of a future world to the duration of which a century or two are moments too brief to waste upon thoughts of fame and power and avarice. While with that agreement is combined another, namely since they can know nothing as to the nature of that deity beyond the fact of his supreme goodness, nor of that future world beyond the fact of its felicitous existence, so their reason forbids all angry disputes on insoluble questions. Thus they secure for that state in the bowels of the earth what no community ever secured under the light of the stars. All the blessings and consolations of a religion without any of the evils and calamities which are engendered by strife between one religion and another. It would be then utterly impossible to deny that the state of existence among the Vreliya is thus as a whole immeasurably more felicitous than that of superterrestrial races, and realizing the dreams of our most sanguine philanthropists almost approaches to a poet's conception of some angelical order. And yet, if you would take a thousand of the best and most philosophical human beings you could find in London, Paris, Berlin, New York, or even Boston, and place them as citizens in the beatified community, my belief is that in less than a year they would either die of envy or attempt some revolution by which they would militate against the good of the community and be burnt into cinders at the request of the tour. Certainly I have no desire to insinuate through the medium of this narrative any ignorant disparagement of the race to which I belong. I have, on the contrary, endeavored to make it clear that the principles which regulate the social system of the Vreliya forbid them to produce those individual examples of human greatness which adorn the annals of the upper world, where there are no wars there can be no Hannibal, no Washington, no Jackson, no Sheridan, where states are so happy that they fear no danger and desire no change, they cannot give birth to a Demosthenes, a Webster, a Summoner, a Wendell Holmes, or a Butler, and where a society attains to a moral standard in which there are no crimes and no sorrows from which tragedy can extract its alignment of pity and sorrow, no salient vices or follies on which comedy can lavish its mirthful satire. It has lost the chance of producing a Shakespeare or a Molière or a Mrs. Beecher Stowe. But if I have no desire to disparage my fellow men above ground in showing how much the motives that impel the energies and ambition of individuals in a society of contest and struggle become dormant or annulled in a society which aims at securing for the aggregate the calm and innocent felicity which we presume to be the lot of beautified immortals. Neither, on the other hand, have I the wish to represent the commonwealths of the Vrelia as an ideal form of political society to the attainment of which our own efforts of reform should be directed. On the contrary, it is because we have so combined throughout the series of ages the elements which compose human character that it would be utterly impossible for us to adopt the modes of life or to reconcile our passions to the modes of thought among the Vrelia that I arrive at the conviction that this people, though originally not only of our human race, but as seems to be clear by the roots of their knowledge, descended from the same ancestors as the great Aryan family from which in varied streams has flowed the dominant civilization of the world, and having, according to their myths and their history, passed through phases of society familiar to ourselves, had yet now developed into a distinct species with which it was impossible that any community in the upper world could amalgamate, and that if they ever emerged from these nether recesses into the light of day, they would, according to their own traditional persuasions of their ultimate destiny, destroy and replace our existent varieties of man. It may indeed be said, since more than one Ghee could be found to conceive the partiality for so ordinary a type of our superterrestrial race as myself, that even if the Vrelia did appear above ground, we might be saved from extermination by intermixture of race. But this is too sanguine a belief. Instances of such mess alliance would be as rare as those of intermarriage between the Anglo-Saxon immigrants and the Red Indians. Nor would time be allowed for the operation of familiar intercourse. The Vrelia on emerging, induced by the charm of a sunlit heaven to form their settlements above ground, would commence at once to work on destruction, seize upon the territories already cultivated, and clear off, without scruple, all the inhabitants who resisted that invasion. And considering their contempt for the institutions of Kumpush or popular government, and the pugnacious valor of my beloved countrymen, I believe that if the Vrelia first appeared in free America as being the choicest portion of the habitable earth they would doubtless be induced to do, and said, this quarter of the globe we take. Citizens of a Kumpush make way for the development of speeches in the Vrelia. My brave compatriots would show fight, and not a soul of them would be left in this life to rally round the stars and stripes at the end of a week. I now saw but little of Zee save at meals when the family assembled, and she was then reserved and silent. My apprehensions of danger from an affection I had so little encouraged or deserved therefore now faded away, but my dejection continued to increase. I pined for escape to the upper world, but I racked my brains in vain for any means to effect it. I was never permitted to wander forth alone so that I could not even visit the spot on which I had alighted, and see if it were possible to re-ascend to the mine. Nor even in the silent hours when the household was locked in sleep could I have let myself down from the lofty floor in which my apartment was placed. I knew not how to command the automata who stood mockingly at my beck beside the wall, nor could I ascertain the springs by which were set in movement the platforms that supplied the place of stairs. The knowledge how to avail myself of these contrivances had been purposely withheld from me. Oh, that I could but have learned the use of wings so freely here at the service of every infant. Then I might have escaped from the casement, regained the rocks, and buoyed myself aloft through the chasm of which the perpendicular sides forbade place of human footing. CHAPTER XXVII One day as I sat alone and brooding in my chamber, Ta'i flew in at the 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 eclipse than in that of Anna 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 netherworld, 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 two forth. We soon found ourselves in the street and had not got far from the house when we encountered five or six young Ja'e who were returning from the fields with baskets full of flowers and chanting a song in chorus as they walked. A young Yi sings more often than she talks. They stopped on seeing us, accosting Ta'i with familiar kindness, and me with the courteous gallantry which distinguishes the Ja'e in their manner toward our weaker sex. And here I may observe, that though a virgin Yi is so frank in her courtship to the individual she favors, there is nothing that approaches to that general breath and loudness of manner which those young ladies of the Anglo-Saxon race, to whom the distinguished epithet of fast is accorded, exhibit towards young gentlemen whom they do not profess to love. No, the bearing of the Ja'e towards males and ordinary is very much that of high bred men in the garlant societies of the upper world towards ladies whom they respect but do not woo. Deferential, complementary, 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 Ja'e. In the world I came from, a man would have thought himself aggrieved, treated with irony, shaft, if so vulgar a slang word may be allowed, on the authority of the popular novelist who used it so freely, when one fair Guy 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 conquest I had made at Appolin's entertainment. But I knew already that all such language was what the French call banal, and did but express in the female mouse 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, Thay'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 Sidney might have termed rustic, why do you never come to see us? While I was deliberating on the right answer to give to this unlooked-for question, Thay 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 Thay in general, but Thay'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 Vrelia. 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 tour 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 jaillet, went through the midst of the group, still without a word. CHAPTER XXVIII When Taiyi 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 in your father's face which appalls me. I feel as if, in its awful tranquility, I gazed upon death. Taiyi 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 Vrelia 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? Taiyi 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. It is my sister's fault or folly, said Taiyi with some insolence, 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 our community, and he said to me, Take thy Vrelia 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 the 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 honors 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 might do so now. You, by the aid of your wings, could fasten to the rocky ledge within the chasm the cord that I 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 Apolin, 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 Z. bade me not question you as to yourself or your race? On quitting you that day, Apolin 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 discoloration where they had been shuttered rose from footing to rooftop, not a cranny. All hope then is gone. I murmured, sinking down on the craggy wayside, and I shall never more 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. Tayi 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 that 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 Tayi'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 morning 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 Vrelia I was awakened from the disturbed slumber into which I had not long fallen, by a hand on my shoulder. I started and beheld Z standing beside me. Hush! she said in a whisper. Let no one hear us. Does thou think that I have ceased to watch over thy safety because I could not win thy love? I have seen Tayi. He has not prevailed with his father, who had meanwhile conferred with the three sages, who in doubtful matters he takes into counsel, and by their advice he has ordained thee to perish when the world reawakens to life. I will save thee, rise and dress. Z 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 Vrelia. The young Yi 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 Vrelia has lighted up the world in which they dwell. Tomorrow the world will be dark for 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 round 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 holy without the sight and stir of mortal life. Soft as where our footsteps, their sounds vexed the ear, as out of harmony with the universal repose. I was aware in my own mind, though Xi 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 reopened, 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 Tai'i a new cliff had been riven, and along its blackened side still glimmered sparks and smoldered embers. My upward gaze could not, however, penetrate 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. Xi divined my doubt. Fear not, said Xi with the 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 pause 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, I 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 gi tenderly. During this brief interchange of words Xi 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 averting 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 born 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 at rescues from the grave, went the flight of the ghee 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 burnt the dim, feeble lamps of the miners. Then I released my hold. The lady 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. Here our household shake off slumber. The rocks will have again closed over the chasm, not to be reopened 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 beckon time, I shall look round for thee. Even there the world consigned to thyself and thy people may have rocks and gulfs which divided 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 cloen way to lose. Her voice ceased. I heard the swan-like sigh of her wings, and saw the rays of her starry diadem receding far and farther through the gloom. I sat myself down for some time, musing sorrowfully. Then I rose and took my way with slow footsteps toward 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 beef 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 lodgings, but hastened that very day to quit a neighborhood 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 disappointed, as most men are, in matters connected with household love and domestic life, I often think of the young ghee 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 civilization advances. The more devoutly I pray that ages may yet elapse before they 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 at my duty to my fellow men to place on record these four warnings of the coming race.