grow through long, slow years to manhood again? Still, his genius
and his intelligence in their elements would be the same, and with
development would come at last the fruition of all his fondest hopes.
And Sionèd? He would know her when they met. Their souls must be
the same as when the great ocean of Force had tossed them up; and
evolution could work no essential change. Ah! they had entered the
blue atmosphere. And, yes--there lay the earth below them. How he
remembered its green plains and white cities and blue waters! And that
great island--yes, it was familiar enough. It was the land which had
given him birth, and which should have knelt at his feet and granted
him a resting-place amidst its illustrious dead. And this old castle
they were descending upon? He did not remember it. Well, he was to be
of the chosen of earth again. He would have a proud name to offer
her, and this time it should be an unsullied one. This time the world
should ring with his genius, not with his follies. This time--Oh,
what was this? Stop! Stop! No; he could not part with it. The grand,
trained intellect of which he had been so proud--the perfected genius
which had been his glory--they should not strip them from him--they
were part of himself; they were his very essence; he would not give
them up! Oh, God! this horrible shrinking! This was Hell; this was
not re-birth. Physical torture? The words were meaningless beside
this warping, this tearing apart of spirit and mind--those precious
children of his brain--limb from limb. Their shrieks for
help!--their cries of anguish and horror! their clutches! their last
spasmodic--despairing--weakening embrace! He _would_ hold them! His
clasp would defy all the powers of Earth and Air! No, they should not
go--they should not. Oh! this cursed hand, with its nerves of steel.
It would conquer yet, conquer and compress him down into an atom
of impotence--There! it had wrenched them from him; they were
gone--gone--forever. But no, they were there beside him; their moans