This speech was received with evident approval by the young Gy-ei in general; but Taee’s sister looked greatly abashed.  Poor thing!—­and a Princess too!

Just at this moment a shadow fell on the space between me and the group; and, turning round, I beheld the chief magistrate coming close upon us, with the silent and stately pace peculiar to the Vril-ya.  At the sight of his countenance, the same terror which had seized me when I first beheld it returned.  On that brow, in those eyes, there was that same indefinable something which marked the being of a race fatal to our own—­that strange expression of serene exemption from our common cares and passions, of conscious superior power, compassionate and inflexible as that of a judge who pronounces doom.  I shivered, and, inclining low, pressed the arm of my child-friend, and drew him onward silently.  The Tur placed himself before our path, regarded me for a moment without speaking, then turned his eye quietly on his daughter’s face, and, with a grave salutation to her and the other Gy-ei, went through the midst of the group,—­still without a word.

Chapter XXVIII.

When Taee and I found ourselves alone on the broad road that lay between the city and the chasm through which I had descended into this region beneath the light of the stars and sun, I said under my breath, “Child and friend, there is a look in your father’s face which appals me.  I feel as if, in its awful tranquillity, I gazed upon death.”

Taee did not immediately reply.  He seemed agitated, and as if debating with himself by what words to soften some unwelcome intelligence.  At last 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 I belong.  We can conquer it at the call of duty, of honour, of love.  We can die for a truth, for a native land, for those who are dearer to us than ourselves.  But if death do really threaten me now and here, where are such counteractions to the natural instinct which invests with awe and terror the contemplation of severance between soul and body?”

Taee looked surprised, but there was great tenderness in his voice as he replied, “I will tell my father what you say.  I will entreat him to spare 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 to destroy such lives as threaten the community, and he said to me, ’Take thy 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 my murder that thus treacherously thou hast invited me forth?  No, I cannot believe it.  I cannot think thee guilty of such a crime.”