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."
