The Coming Race | Page 7

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 14carpeting. 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 that 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 15observed 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. 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 had received from the
splinters of the falling rock more acutely that 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, heavy 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