The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-lytton — Read

When I once more awoke I saw by my bed-side the child who had brought / the rope and grappling-hooks to the house in which I had been first / received, and which, as I afterwards learned, was the residence of / the chief magistrate of the tribe. The child, whose name was Taee / (pronounced Tar-ee), was the magistrate's eldest son. I found that / during my last sleep or trance I had made still greater advance in the / language of the country, and could converse with comparative ease and / fluency.

This child was singularly handsome, even for the beautiful race to which / he belonged, with a countenance very manly in aspect for his years, and / with a more vivacious and energetic expression than I had hitherto seen / in the serene and passionless faces of the men. He brought me the tablet / on which I had drawn the mode of my descent, and had also sketched the / head of the horrible reptile that had scared me from my friend's corpse. / Pointing to that part of the drawing, Taee put to me a few questions / respecting the size and form of the monster, and the cave or chasm from / which it had emerged. His interest in my answers seemed so grave as / to divert him for a while from any curiosity as to myself or my / antecedents. But to my great embarrassment, seeing how I was pledged to / my host, he was just beginning to ask me where I came from, when Zee, / fortunately entered, and, overhearing him, said, "Taee, give to our / guest any information he may desire, but ask none from him in return. To / question him who he is, whence he comes, or wherefore he is here, would / be a breach of the law which my father has laid down in this house."