The Coming Race(一个即临种族)

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The Coming Race

by Edward Bulwer, Lord Lytton

The Coming Race

CHAPTER I.

I am a native of _____, in the United States of America. My

ancestors migrated from England in the reign of Charles II.; and my

grandfather was not undistinguished in the War of Independence. My

family, therefore, enjoyed a somewhat high social position in right of birth;

and being also opulent, they were considered disqualified for the public

service. My father once ran for Congress, but was signally defeated by

his tailor. After that event he interfered little in politics, and lived much in

his library. I was the eldest of three sons, and sent at the age of sixteen to

the old country, partly to complete my literary education, partly to

commence my commercial training in a mercantile firm at Liverpool.

My father died shortly after I was twenty-one; and being left well off, and

having a taste for travel and adventure, I resigned, for a time, all pursuit of

the almighty dollar, and became a desultory wanderer over the face of the

earth.

In the year 18__, happening to be in _____, I was invited by a

professional engineer, with whom I had made acquaintance, to visit the

recesses of the ________ mine, upon which he was employed.

The reader will understand, ere he close this narrative, my reason for

concealing all clue to the district of which I write, and will perhaps thank

me for refraining from any description that may tend to its discovery.

6Let me say, then, as briefly as possible, that I accompanied the

engineer into the interior of the mine, and became so strangely fascinated

by its gloomy wonders, and so interested in my friend's explorations, that I

prolonged my stay in the neighbourhood, and descended daily, for some

weeks, into the vaults and galleries hollowed by nature and art beneath the

surface of the earth. The engineer was persuaded that far richer deposits

of mineral wealth than had yet been detected, would be found in a new

shaft that had been commenced under his operations. In piercing this

shaft we came one day upon a chasm jagged and seemingly charred at the

sides, as if burst asunder at some distant period by volcanic fires. Down

this chasm my friend caused himself to be lowered in a 'cage,' having first

tested the atmosphere by the safety-lamp. He remained nearly an hour in

The Coming Race

the abyss. When he returned he was very pale, and with an anxious,

thoughtful expression of face, very different from its ordinary character,

which was open, cheerful, and fearless.

He said briefly that the descent appeared to him unsafe, and leading to

no result; and, suspending further operations in the shaft, we returned to

the more familiar parts of the mine. All the rest of that day the engineer

seemed preoccupied by some absorbing thought. He was unusually

taciturn, and there was a scared, bewildered look in his eyes, as that of a

man who has seen a ghost. At night, as we two were sitting alone in the

lodging we shared together near the mouth of the mine, I said to my

friend,-

"Tell me frankly what you saw in that chasm: I am sure it was

something strange and terrible. Whatever it be, it has left your mind in a

state of doubt. In such a case two heads are better than one. Confide in

me."

The engineer long endeavoured to evade my inquiries; but as, while

he spoke, he helped himself unconsciously out of the brandy-flask to a

degree to which he was wholly unaccustomed, 7for he was a very

temperate man, his reserve gradually melted away. He who would keep

himself to himself should imitate the dumb animals, and drink water. At

last he said, "I will tell you all. When the cage stopped, I found myself

on a ridge of rock; and below me, the chasm, taking a slanting direction,

shot down to a considerable depth, the darkness of which my lamp could

not have penetrated. But through it, to my infinite surprise, streamed

upward a steady brilliant light. Could it be any volcanic fire? In that case,

surely I should have felt the heat. Still, if on this there was doubt, it was

of the utmost importance to our common safety to clear it up. I

examined the sides of the descent, and found that I could venture to trust

myself to the irregular projection of ledges, at least for some way. I left

the cage and clambered down. As I drew nearer and nearer to the light,

the chasm became wider, and at last I saw, to my unspeakable amaze, a

broad level road at the bottom of the abyss, illumined as far as the eye

could reach by what seemed artificial gas-lamps placed at regular intervals,

as in the thoroughfare of a great city; and I heard confusedly at a distance

The Coming Race

a hum as of human voices. I know, of course, that no rival miners are at

work in this district. Whose could be those voices? What human hands

could have levelled that road and marshalled those lamps?

"The superstitious belief, common to miners, that gnomes or fiends

dwell within the bowels of the earth, began to seize me. I shuddered at

the thought of descending further and braving the inhabitants of this nether

valley. Nor indeed could I have done so without ropes, as from the spot I

had reached to the bottom of the chasm the sides of the rock sank down

abrupt, smooth, and sheer. I retraced my steps with some difficulty.

Now I have told you all."

"You will descend again?"

"I ought, yet I feel as if I durst not."

"A trusty companion halves the journey and doubles the courage. 8I

will go with you. We will provide ourselves with ropes of suitable length

and strength- and- pardon me- you must not drink more to-night. our

hands and feet must be steady and firm tomorrow."

The Coming Race

CHAPTER II.

With the morning my friend's nerves were rebraced, and he was not

less excited by curiosity than myself. Perhaps more; for he evidently

believed in his own story, and I felt considerable doubt of it; not that he

would have wilfully told an untruth, but that I thought he must have been

under one of those hallucinations which seize on our fancy or our nerves

in solitary, unaccustomed places, and in which we give shape to the

formless and sound to the dumb.

We selected six veteran miners to watch our descent; and as the cage

held only one at a time, the engineer descended first; and when he had

gained the ledge at which he had before halted, the cage rearose for me.

I soon gained his side. We had provided ourselves with a strong coil of

rope.

The light struck on my sight as it had done the day before on my

friend's. The hollow through which it came sloped diagonally: it seemed

to me a diffused atmospheric light, not like that from fire, but soft and

silvery, as from a northern star. Quitting the cage, we descended, one

after the other, easily enough, owing to the juts in the side, till we reached

the place at which my friend had previously halted, and which was a

projection just spacious enough to allow us to stand abreast. From this

spot the chasm widened rapidly like the lower end of a vast funnel, and I

saw distinctly the valley, the road, the lamps which my companion had

described. He had exaggerated nothing. I heard the sounds he had

heard- a mingled indescribable hum as of voices and a dull tramp as of

9feet. Straining my eye farther down, I clearly beheld at a distance the

outline of some large building. It could not be mere natural rock, it was

too symmetrical, with huge heavy Egyptian-like columns, and the whole

lighted as from within. I had about me a small pocket-telescope, and by

the aid of this, I could distinguish, near the building I mention, two forms

which seemed human, though I could not be sure. At least they were

living, for they moved, and both vanished within the building. We now

proceeded to attach the end of the rope we had brought with us to the

ledge on which we stood, by the aid of clamps and grappling hooks, with

The Coming Race

which, as well as with necessary tools, we were provided.

We were almost silent in our work. We toiled like men afraid to

speak to each other. One end of the rope being thus apparently made

firm to the ledge, the other, to which we fastened a fragment of the rock,

rested on the ground below, a distance of some fifty feet. I was a

younger man and a more active man than my companion, and having

served on board ship in my boyhood, this mode of transit was more

familiar to me than to him. In a whisper I claimed the precedence, so

that when I gained the ground I might serve to hold the rope more steady

for his descent. I got safely to the ground beneath, and the engineer now

began to lower himself. But he had scarcely accomplished ten feet of the

descent, when the fastenings, which we had fancied so secure, gave way,

or rather the rock itself proved treacherous and crumbled beneath the

strain; and the unhappy man was precipitated to the bottom, falling just at

my feet, and bringing down with his fall splinters of the rock, one of

which, fortunately but a small one, struck and for the time stunned me.

When I recovered my senses I saw my companion an inanimate mass

beside me, life utterly extinct. While I was bending over his corpse in

grief and horror, I heard close at hand a strange sound between a snort and

a hiss; and turning instinctively to the quarter from 10which it came, I saw

emerging from a dark fissure in the rock a vast and terrible head, with

open jaws and dull, ghastly, hungry eyes- the head of a monstrous reptile

resembling that of the crocodile or alligator, but infinitely larger than the

largest creature of that kind I had ever beheld in my travels. I started to my

feet and fled down the valley at my utmost speed. I stopped at last,

ashamed of my panic and my flight, and returned to the spot on which I

had left the body of my friend. It was gone; doubtless the monster had

already drawn it into its den and devoured it. the rope and the grappling-

hooks still lay where they had fallen, but they afforded me no chance of

return; it was impossible to re-attach them to the rock above, and the sides

of the rock were too sheer and smooth for human steps to clamber. I was

alone in this strange world, amidst the bowels of the earth.

The Coming Race

CHAPTER III.

Slowly and cautiously I went my solitary way down the lamplit road

and towards the large building I have described. The road itself seemed

like a great Alpine pass, skirting rocky mountains of which the one

through whose chasm I had descended formed a link. Deep below to the

left lay a vast valley, which presented to my astonished eye the

unmistakeable evidences of art and culture. There were fields covered

with a strange vegetation, similar to none I have seen above the earth; the

colour of it not green, but rather of a dull and leaden hue or of a golden

red.

There were lakes and rivulets which seemed to have been curved into

artificial banks; some of pure water, others that shone like pools of

naphtha. At my right hand, ravines and defiles opened amidst the rocks,

with passes between, evidently constructed by art, and bordered by trees

resembling, for the 11most part, gigantic ferns, with exquisite varieties of

feathery foliage, and stems like those of the palm-tree. Others were more

like the cane-plant, but taller, bearing large clusters of flowers. Others,

again, had the form of enormous fungi, with short thick stems supporting a

wide dome-like roof, from which either rose or drooped long slender

branches. The whole scene behind, before, and beside me far as the eye

could reach, was brilliant with innumerable lamps. The world without a

sun was bright and warm as an Italian landscape at noon, but the air less

oppressive, the heat softer. Nor was the scene before me void of signs of

habitation. I could distinguish at a distance, whether on the banks of the

lake or rivulet, or half-way upon eminences, embedded amidst the

vegetation, buildings that must surely be the homes of men. I could even

discover, though far off, forms that appeared to me human moving amidst

the landscape. As I paused to gaze, I saw to the right, gliding quickly

through the air, what appeared a small boat, impelled by sails shaped like

wings. It soon passed out of sight, descending amidst the shades of a

forest. Right above me there was no sky, but only a cavernous roof.

This roof grew higher and higher at the distance of the landscapes beyond,

till it became imperceptible, as an atmosphere of haze formed itself

The Coming Race

beneath.

Continuing my walk, I started,- from a bush that resembled a great

tangle of sea-weeds, interspersed with fern-like shrubs and plants of large

leafage shaped like that of the aloe or prickly-pear,- a curious animal about

the size and shape of a deer. But as, after bounding away a few paces, it

turned round and gazed at me inquisitively, I perceived that it was not like

any species of deer now extant above the earth, but it brought instantly to

my recollection a plaster cast I had seen in some museum of a variety of

the elk stag, said to have existed before the Deluge. The creature seemed

tame enough, and, after inspecting me a moment or two, began to graze on

the singular herbiage around undismayed and careless.

The Coming Race

CHAPTER IV.

I now came in full sight of the building. Yes, it had been made by

hands, and hollowed partly out of a great rock. I should have supposed it

at the first glance to have been of the earliest form of Egyptian

architecture. It was fronted by huge columns, tapering upward from

massive plinths, and with capitals that, as I came nearer, I perceived to be

more ornamental and more fantastically graceful that Egyptian

architecture allows. As the Corinthian capital mimics the leaf of the

acanthus, so the capitals of these columns imitated the foliage of the

vegetation neighbouring them, some aloe-like, some fern-like. And now

there came out of this building a form- human;- was it human? It stood on

the broad way and looked around, beheld me and approached. It came

within a few yards of me, and at the sight and presence of it an

indescribable awe and tremor seized me, rooting my feet to the ground.

It reminded me of symbolical images of Genius or Demon that are seen on

Etruscan vases or limned on the walls of Eastern sepulchres- images that

borrow the outlines of man, and are yet of another race. It was tall, not

gigantic, but tall as the tallest man below the height of giants.

Its chief covering seemed to me to be composed of large wings folded

over its breast and reaching to its knees; the rest of its attire was composed

of an under tunic and leggings of some thin fibrous material. It wore on

its head a kind of tiara that shone with jewels, and carried in its right hand

a slender staff of bright metal like polished steel. But the face! it was

that which inspired my awe and my terror. It was the face of man, but

yet of a type of man distinct from our known extant races. The nearest

approach to it in outline and expression is the face of the sculptured

sphinx- so regular in its calm, intellectual, mysterious beauty. Its colour

was peculiar, more 13like that of the red man than any other variety of our

species, and yet different from it- a richer and a softer hue, with large

black eyes, deep and brilliant, and brows arched as a semicircle. The

face was beardless; but a nameless something in the aspect, tranquil

though the expression, and beauteous though the features, roused that

instinct of danger which the sight of a tiger or serpent arouses. I felt that

The Coming Race

this manlike image was endowed with forces inimical to man. As it drew

near, a cold shudder came over me. I fell on my knees and covered my

face with my hands.

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TheComingRace1TheComingRacebyEdwardBulwer,LordLyttonTheComingRace2CHAPTERI.Iamanativeof_____,intheUnitedStatesofAmerica.MyancestorsmigratedfromEnglandinthereignofCharlesII.;andmygrandfatherwasnotundistinguishedintheWarofIndependence.Myfamily,therefore,enjoyedasomewhathighsocialpositioninrightofbirth...

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