Chapter XXVIII.
When Taee and I found ourselves alone on the broad road that lay betweenthe city and the chasm through which I had descended into this regionbeneath the light of the stars and sun, I said under my breath, "Childand friend, there is a look in your father's face which appals me. Ifeel as if, in its awful tranquillity, I gazed upon death."
Taee did not immediately reply. He seemed agitated, and as if debatingwith himself by what words to soften some unwelcome intelligence. Atlast 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 Ibelong. We can conquer it at the call of duty, of honour, of love. Wecan die for a truth, for a native land, for those who are dearer to usthan ourselves. But if death do really threaten me now and here, whereare such counteractions to the natural instinct which invests with aweand terror the contemplation of severance between soul and body?"
Taee looked surprised, but there was great tenderness in his voice ashe replied, "I will tell my father what you say. I will entreat him tospare 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 todestroy such lives as threaten the community, and he said to me, 'Takethy 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 mymurder that thus treacherously thou hast invited me forth? No, I cannotbelieve it. I cannot think thee guilty of such a crime."
"It is no crime to slay those who threaten the good of the community; itwould be a crime to slay the smallest insect that cannot harm us."
"If you mean that I threaten the good of the community because yoursister honours me with the sort of preference which a child may feel fora strange plaything, it is not necessary to kill me. Let me return tothe people I have left, and by the chasm through which I descended. Witha 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 youfound, and have no doubt preserved. Do but that; assist me but to thespot from which I alighted, and I vanish from your world for ever, andas surely as if I were among the dead."
"The chasm through which you descended! Look round; we stand now on thevery place where it yawned. What see you? Only solid rock. The chasm wasclosed, by the orders of Aph-Lin, as soon as communication between himand yourself was established in your trance, and he learned fromyour own lips the nature of the world from which you came. Do you notremember when Zee bade me not question you as to yourself or yourrace? On quitting you that day, Aph-Lin accosted me, and said, 'No pathbetween the stranger's home and ours should be left unclosed, or thesorrow and evil of his home may descend to ours. Take with thee thechildren of thy band, smite the sides of the cavern with your vrilstaves till the fall of their fragments fills up every chink throughwhich a gleam of our lamps could force its way.'"
As the child spoke, I stared aghast at the blind rocks before me. Hugeand irregular, the granite masses, showing by charred discolourationwhere they had been shattered, rose from footing to roof-top; not acranny!
"All hope, then, is gone," I murmured, sinking down on the craggywayside, "and I shall nevermore see the sun." I covered my face with myhands, and prayed to Him whose presence I had so often forgotten whenthe heavens had declared His handiwork. I felt His presence in thedepths of the nether earth, and amidst the world of the grave. I lookedup, taking comfort and courage from my prayers, and, gazing with a quietsmile 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 notso formally made as to leave me no choice. I will speak with him, andmay prevail to save thee. Strange that thou shouldst have that fear ofdeath 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 todeparture from this form of life to that form which lies on the otherside of the moment called 'death,' did I share thy journey? If so, Iwill ask my father whether it be allowable for me to go with thee. I amone of our generation destined to emigrate, when of age for it, to someregions unknown within this world. I would just as soon emigrate now toregions unknown, in another world. The All-Good is no less there thanhere. Where is he not?"
"Child," said I, seeing by Taee's countenance that he spoke in seriousearnest, "it is crime in thee to slay me; it were a crime not less inme to say, 'Slay thyself.' The All-Good chooses His own time to give uslife, and his own time to take it away. Let us go back. If, on speakingwith thy father, he decides on my death, give me the longest warning inthy power, so that I may pass the interval in self-preparation."