It may, indeed, be said, since more than one Gy could be found to conceive a partiality for so ordinary a type of our super-terrestrial race as myself, that even if the Vril-ya did appear above ground, we might be saved from extermination by intermixture of race.  But this is too sanguine a belief.  Instances of such ‘mesalliance’ would be as rare as those of intermarriage between the Anglo-Saxon emigrants and the Red Indians.  Nor would time be allowed for the operation of familiar intercourse.  The Vril-ya, on emerging, induced by the charm of a sunlit heaven to form their settlements above ground, would commence at once the work of destruction, seize upon the territories already cultivated, and clear off, without scruple, all the inhabitants who resisted that invasion.  And considering their contempt for the institutions of Koom-Posh or Popular Government, and the pugnacious valour of my beloved countrymen, I believe that if the Vril-ya first appeared in free America—­as, being the choicest portion of the habitable earth, they would doubtless be induced to do—­and said, “This quarter of the globe we take; Citizens of a Koom-Posh, make way for the development of species in the Vril-ya,” my brave compatriots would show fight, and not a soul of them would be left in this life, to rally round the Stars and Stripes, at the end of a week.

I now saw but little of Zee, save at meals, when the family assembled, and she was then reserved and silent.  My apprehensions of danger from an affection I had so little encouraged or deserved, therefore, now faded away, but my dejection continued to increase.  I pined for escape to the upper world, but I racked my brains in vain for any means to effect it.  I was never permitted to wander forth alone, so that I could not even visit the spot on which I had alighted, and see if it were possible to reascend to the mine.  Nor even in the Silent Hours, when the household was locked in sleep, could I have let myself down from the lofty floor in which my apartment was placed.  I knew not how to command the automata who stood mockingly at my beck beside the wall, nor could I ascertain the springs by which were set in movement the platforms that supplied the place of stairs.  The knowledge how to avail myself of these contrivances had been purposely withheld from me.  Oh, that I could but have learned the use of wings, so freely here at the service of every infant, then I might have escaped from the casement, regained the rocks, and buoyed myself aloft through the chasm of which the perpendicular sides forbade place for human footing!

Chapter XXVII.

One day, as I sat alone and brooding in my chamber, Taee flew in at the open window and alighted on the couch beside me.  I was always pleased with the visits of a child, in whose society, if humbled, I was less eclipsed than in that of Ana who had completed their education and matured their understanding.  And as I was permitted to wander forth with him for my companion, and as I longed to revisit the spot in which I had descended into the nether world, I hastened to ask him if he were at leisure for a stroll beyond the streets of the city.  His countenance seemed to me graver than usual as he replied, “I came hither on purpose to invite you forth.”