Edward Bulwer Lytton - The Coming Race

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The Coming Race - Edward Bulwer Lytton

1 presented by Randolph Carter

The Coming Race

by Edward Bulwer Lytton

Legendary for his turgid prose ("it was a dark and stormy night...")

Bulwer-Lytton's pioneering science fiction novel "Vril" was taken

very seriously by 19th Century Atlantis fans (for instance, Scott-

Elliot). Vril is a mysterious energy which is used by Lytton's

subterranian race (refugees from the Deluge) to power their

advanced civilization; it was later treated as a reality by occultists.

The plot of this book was recycled for numerous 'B' pulp scifi

movies and assorted crank theories.

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.

Let 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 abyss.

The Coming Race - Edward Bulwer Lytton

2 presented by Randolph Carter

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, for 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 projections or ledges, at least for some way. I left the cage and

clambered down. As I drew near 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 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."

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3 presented by Randolph Carter

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

to-morrow."

CHAPTER II

WITH the morning my friend's nerves were re-braced, 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 re-arose 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 feet. 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

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 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

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4 presented by Randolph Carter

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 which 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.

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 chasms I had descended

formed a link. Deep below to the left lay a vast valley, which presented to my

astonished eye the unmistakable 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 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 most 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 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

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distance of the landscapes beyond, till it became imperceptible, as an atmosphere of

haze formed itself beneath.

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

seaweeds, 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 herbage around undismayed and careless.

CHAPTER IV

I NOW came in full sight of the building. Yes, it bad 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 than

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 men 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 like

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 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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CHAPTER V

A VOICE accosted me--a very quiet and very musical key of voice--in a language of

which I could not understand a word, but it served to dispel my fear. I uncovered my

face and looked up. The stranger (I could scarcely bring myself to call him man)

surveyed me with an eye that seemed to read to the very depths of my heart. He then

placed his left hand on my forehead, and with the staff in his right gently touched my

shoulder. The effect of this double contact was magical. In place of my former terror

there passed into me a sense of contentment, of joy, of confidence in myself and in

the being before me. I rose and spoke in my own language. He listened to me with

apparent attention, but with a slight surprise in his looks; and shook his head, as if to

signify that I was not understood. He then took me by the hand and led me in silence

to the building. The entrance was open--indeed there was no door to it. We entered

an immense hall, lighted by the same kind of lustre as in the scene without, but

diffusing a fragrant odour. The floor was in large tesselated blocks of precious

metals, and partly covered with a sort of matlike carpeting. A strain of low music,

above and around, undulated as if from invisible instruments, seeming to belong

naturally to the place, just as the sound of murmuring waters belongs to a rocky

landscape, or the warble of birds to vernal groves.

A figure, in a simpler garb than that of my guide, but of similar fashion, was standing

motionless near the threshold. My guide touched it twice with his staff, and it put itself

into a rapid and gliding movement, skimming noiselessly over the floor. Gazing on it, I

then saw that it was no living form, but a mechanical automaton. It might be two

minutes after it vanished through a doorless opening, half screened by curtains at the

other end of the hall, when through the same opening advanced a boy of about

twelve years old, with features closely resembling those of my guide, so that they

seemed to me evidently son and father. On seeing me the child uttered a cry, and

lifted a staff like that borne by my guide, as if in menace. At a word from the elder he

dropped it. The two then conversed for some moments, examining me while they

spoke. The child touched my garments, and stroked my face with evident curiosity,

uttering a sound like a laugh, but with an hilarity more subdued than the mirth of our

laughter. Presently the roof of the hall opened, and a platform descended, seemingly

constructed on the same principle as the `lifts' used in hotels and warehouses for

mounting from one story to another. The stranger placed himself and the child on the

platform, and motioned to me to do the same, which I did. We ascended quickly and

safely, and alighted in the midst of a corridor with doorways on either side.

Through one of these doorways I was conducted into a chamber fitted up with an

Oriental splendour; the walls were tesselated with spars, and metals, and uncut

jewels; cushions and divans abounded; apertures as for windows, but unglazed,

were made in the chamber, opening to the floor; and as I passed along I observed

that these openings led into spacious balconies, and commanded views of the

illumined landscape without. In cages suspended from the ceiling there were birds of

strange form and bright plumage, which at our entrance set up a chorus of song,

modulated into tune as is that of our piping bullfinches. A delicious fragrance, from

censers of gold elaborately sculptured, filled the air. Several automata, like the one I

had seen, stood dumb and motionless by the walls.

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The stranger placed me beside him on a divan, and again spoke to me, and again I

spoke, but without the least advance towards understanding each other.

But now I began to feel the effects of the blow I received from the splinters of the

falling rock more acutely than I had done at first.

There came over me a sense of sickly faintness, accompanied with acute, lancinating

pains in the head and neck. I sank back on the seat, and strove in vain to stifle a

groan. On this the child, who had hitherto seemed to eye me with distrust or dislike,

knelt by my side to support me; taking one of my hands in both his own, he

approached his lips to my forehead, breathing on it softly. In a few moments my pain

ceased, a drowsy, happy calm crept over me; I fell asleep.

How long I remained in this state I know not, but when I woke I felt perfectly restored.

My eyes opened upon a group of silent forms, seated around me in the gravity and

quietude of Orientals--all more or less like the first stranger; the same mantling wings,

the same fashion of garment, the same sphinx-like faces, with the deep dark eyes

and red man's colour; above all, the same type of race--race akin to man's, but

infinitely stronger of form and grander of aspect, and inspiring the same unutterable

feeling of dread. Yet each countenance was mild and tranquil, and even kindly in its

expression. And strangely enough, it seemed to me that in this very calm and

benignity consisted the secret of the dread which the countenances inspired. They

seemed as void of the lines and shadows which care and sorrow, and passion and

sin, leave upon the faces of men, as are the faces of sculptured gods, or as, in the

eyes of Christian mourners, seem the peaceful brows of the dead.

I felt a warm hand on my shoulder; it was the child's. In his eyes there was a sort of

lofty pity and tenderness, such as that with which we may gaze on some suffering

bird or butterfly. I shrank from that touch--I shrank from that eye. I was vaguely

impressed with a belief that, had he so pleased, that child could have killed me as

easily as a man can kill a bird or a butterfly. The child seemed pained at my

repugnance, quitted me and placed himself beside one of the windows. The others

continued to converse with each other in a low tone, and by their glances towards me

I could perceive that I was the object of their conversation. One in especial seemed

to be urging some proposal affecting me on the being whom I had first met, and this

last by his gesture seemed about to assent to it, when the child suddenly quitted his

post by the window, placed himself between me and the other forms, as if in

protection, and spoke quickly and eagerly. By some intuition or instinct I felt that the

child I had before so dreaded was pleading in my behalf. Ere he had ceased another

stranger entered the room. He appeared older than the rest, though not old; his

countenance, less smoothly serene than theirs, though equally regular in its features,

seemed to me to have more the touch of a humanity akin to my own. He listened

quietly to the words addressed to him, first by my guide, next by two others of the

group, and lastly by the child; then turned towards myself, and addressed me, not by

words, but by signs and gestures. These I fancied that I perfectly understood, and I

was not mistaken. I comprehended that he inquired whence I came. I extended my

arm and pointed towards the road which had led me from the chasm in the rock; then

an idea seized me. I drew forth my pocket-book and sketched on one of its blank

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leaves a rough design of the ledge of the rock, the rope, myself clinging to it; then of

the cavernous rock below, the head of the reptile, the lifeless form of my friend.

I gave this primitive kind of hieroglyph to my interrogator, who, after inspecting it

gravely, handed it to his next neighbour, and it thus passed round the group. The

being I had at first encountered then said a few words, and the child, who

approached and looked at my drawing, nodded as if he comprehended its purport,

and, returning to the window, expanded the wings attached to his form, shook them

once or twice, and then launched himself into space without. I started up in amaze

and hastened to the window. The child was already in the air, buoyed on his wings,

which he did not flap to and fro as a bird does, but which were elevated over his

head, and seemed to bear him steadily aloft without effort of his own. His flight

seemed as swift as any eagle's; and I observed that it was towards the rock whence I

had descended, of which the outline loomed visible in the brilliant atmosphere.

In a very few minutes he returned, skimming through the opening from which he had

gone, and dropping on the floor the rope and grappling-hooks I had left at the

descent from the chasm. Some words in a low tone passed between the beings

present: one of the group touched an automaton, which started forward and glided

from the room; then the last comer, who had addressed me by gestures, rose, took

me by the hand, and led me into the corridor. There the platform by which I had

mounted awaited us; we placed ourselves on it and were lowered into the hall below.

My new companion, still holding me by the hand, conducted me from the building into

a street (so to speak) that stretched beyond it, with buildings on either side,

separated from each other by gardens bright with rich-coloured vegetation and

strange flowers. Interspersed amidst these gardens, which were divided from each

other by low walls, or walking slowly along the road, were many forms similar to

those I had already seen. Some of the passers-by, on observing me, approached my

guide, evidently by their tones, looks, and gestures addressing to him inquiries about

myself. In a few moments a crowd collected round us, examining me with great

interest, as if I were some rare wild animal. Yet even in gratifying their curiosity they

preserved a grave and courteous demeanour; and after a few words from my guide,

who seemed to me to deprecate obstruction in our road, they fell back with a stately

inclination of head, and resumed their own way with tranquil indifference. Midway in

this thoroughfare we stopped at a building that differed from those we had hitherto

passed, inasmuch as it formed three sides of a vast court, at the angles of which

were lofty pyramidal towers; in the open space between the sides was a circular

fountain of colossal dimensions, and throwing up a dazzling spray of what seemed to

me fire. We entered the building through an open doorway and came into an

enormous hall, in which were several groups of children, all apparently employed in

work as at some great factory. There was a huge engine in the wall which was in full

play, with wheels and cylinders, and resembling our own steam-engines, except that

it was richly ornamented with precious stones and metals, and appeared to emit a

pale phosphorescent atmosphere of shifting light. Many of the children were at some

mysterious work on this machinery, others were seated before tables.

I was not allowed to linger long enough to examine into the nature of their

employment. Not one young voice was heard--not one young face turned to gaze on

us. They were all still and indifferent as may be ghosts, through the midst of which

pass unnoticed the forms of the living.

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Quitting this hall, my guide led me through a gallery richly painted in compartments,

with a barbaric mixture of gold in the colours, like pictures by Louis Cranach. The

subjects described on these walls appeared to my glance as intended to illustrate

events in the history of the race amidst which I was admitted. In all there were

figures, most of them like the manlike creatures I had seen, but not all in the same

fashion of garb, nor all with wings. There were also the effigies of various animals

and birds wholly strange to me, with backgrounds depicting landscapes or buildings.

So far as my imperfect knowledge of the pictorial art would allow me to form an

opinion, these paintings seemed very accurate in design and very rich in colouring,

showing a perfect knowledge of perspective, but their details not arranged according

to the rules of composition acknowledged by our artists--wanting, as it were, a centre;

so that the effect was vague, scattered, confused, bewildering--they were like

heterogeneous fragments of a dream of art.

We now came into a room of moderate size, in which was assembled what I

afterwards knew to be the family of my guide, seated at a table spread as for repast.

The forms thus grouped were those of my guide's wife, his daughter, and two sons.

I recognised at once the difference between the two sexes, though the two females

were of taller stature and ampler proportions than the males; and their countenances,

if still more symmetrical in outline and contour, were devoid of the softness and

timidity of expression which give charm to the face of woman as seen on the earth

above. The wife wore no wings, the daughter wore wings longer than those of the

males.

My guide uttered a few words, on which all the persons seated rose, and with that

peculiar mildness of look and manner which I have before noticed, and which is, in

truth, the common attribute of this formidable race, they saluted me according to their

fashion, which consists in laying the right hand very gently on the head and uttering a

soft sibilant monosyllable--S Si, equivalent to "Welcome."

The mistress of the house then seated me beside her, and heaped a golden platter

before me from one of the dishes.

While I ate (and though the viands were new to me, I marvelled more at the delicacy

than the strangeness of their flavour), my companions conversed quietly, and, so far

as I could detect, with polite avoidance of any direct reference to myself, or any

obtrusive scrutiny of my appearance. Yet I was the first creature of that variety of the

human race to which I belong that they had ever beheld, and was consequently

regarded by them as a most curious and abnormal phenomenon. But all rudeness is

unknown to this people, and the youngest child is taught to despise any vehement

emotional demonstration. When the meal was ended, my guide again took me by the

hand, and, re-entering the gallery, touched a metallic plate inscribed with strange

figures, and which I rightly conjectured to be of the nature of our telegraphs.

A platform descended, but this time we mounted to a much greater height than in the

former building, and found ourselves in a room of moderate dimensions, and which in

its general character had much that might be familiar to the associations of a visitor

from the upper world. There were shelves on the wall containing what appeared to be

books, and indeed were so; mostly very small like our diamond duodecimos, shaped

in the fashion of our volumes, and bound in fine sheets of metal. There were several

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curious-looking pieces of mechanism scattered about, apparently models, such as

might be seen in the study of any professional mechanician. Four automata

(mechanical contrivances which, with these people, answer the ordinary purposes of

domestic service) stood phantom-like at each angle in the wall. In a recess was a low

couch, or bed with pillows. A window, with curtains of some fibrous material drawn

aside, opened upon a large balcony. My host stepped out into the balcony; I followed

him. We were on the uppermost story of one of the angular pyramids; the view

beyond was of a wild and solemn beauty impossible to describe,--the vast ranges of

precipitous rock which formed the distant background, the intermediate valleys of

mystic many-coloured herbage, the flash of waters, many of them like streams of

roseate flame, the serene lustre diffused over all by myriads of lamps, combined to

form a whole of which no words of mine can convey adequate description; so

splendid was it, yet so sombre; so lovely, yet so awful.

But my attention was soon diverted from these nether landscapes. Suddenly there

arose, as from the streets below, a burst of joyous music; then a winged form soared

into the space; another, as in chase of the first, another and another; others after

others, till the crowd grew thick and the number countless. But how describe the

fantastic grace of these forms in their undulating movements! They appeared

engaged in some sport or amusement; now forming into opposite squadrons; now

scattering; now each group threading the other, soaring, descending, interweaving,

severing; all in measured time to the music below, as if in the dance of the fabled

Peri.

I turned my gaze on my host in a feverish wonder. I ventured to place my hand on the

large wings that lay folded on his breast, and in doing so a slight shock as of

electricity passed through me. I recoiled in fear; my host smiled, and, as if

courteously to gratify my curiosity, slowly expanded his pinions. I observed that his

garment beneath then became dilated as a bladder that fills with air. The arms

seemed to slide into the wings, and in another moment he had launched himself into

the luminous atmosphere, and hovered there, still, and with outspread wings, as an

eagle that basks in the sun. Then, rapidly as an eagle swoops, he rushed downwards

into the midst of one of the groups, skimming through the midst, and as suddenly

again soaring aloft. Thereon, three forms, in one of which I thought to recognise my

host's daughter, detached themselves from the rest, and followed him as a bird

sportively follows a bird. My eyes, dazzled with the lights and bewildered by the

throngs, ceased to distinguish the gyrations and evolutions of these winged

playmates, till presently my host re-emerged from the crowd and alighted at my side.

The strangeness of all I had seen began now to operate fast on my senses; my mind

itself began to wander. Though not inclined to be superstitious, nor hitherto believing

that man could be brought into bodily communication with demons, I felt the terror

and the wild excitement with which, in the Gothic ages, a traveller might have

persuaded himself that he witnessed a sabbat of fiends and witches. I have a vague

recollection of having attempted with vehement gesticulation, and forms of exorcism,

and loud incoherent words, to repel my courteous and indulgent host; of his mild

endeavours to calm and soothe me; of his intelligent conjecture that my fright and

bewilderment were occasioned by the difference of form and movement between us

which the wings that had excited my marvelling curiosity had, in exercise, made still

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TheComingRace-EdwardBulwerLytton1presentedbyRandolphCarterTheComingRacebyEdwardBulwerLyttonLegendaryforhisturgidprose("itwasadarkandstormynight...")Bulwer-Lytton'spioneeringsciencefictionnovel"Vril"wastakenveryseriouslyby19thCenturyAtlantisfans(forinstance,Scott-Elliot).Vrilisamysteriousenergywhichi...

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Edward Bulwer Lytton - The Coming Race

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