a storm a little over a week ago. A week? It seemed so remote that for
the moment he could not recall the events of that last visit; his
head ached so that everything but physical suffering was temporarily
insignificant. There was no moon to-night. The sky was covered with
black, scurrying clouds, and he could only hear the angry, boiling
waters, not see them. He felt suffocated. He had felt so all the
evening. Besides the pain in his head there was a pressure on his
brain; he must have air; and he pulled open one of the windows and
stood within it. The wind beat about his head, the sea-gulls screamed
in his ears, and the roar of the sea was deafening; but it exhilarated
him and eased his head for the moment. What a poem it would make, that
black, storm-swept sky, those mighty, thundering waters, that granite,
wind-torn coast! How he could have immortalized it once! And he had
it in him to immortalize it now, only that mechanical defect in his
brain, no--that cruel iron hand, would not let him tell the world that
he was greater than any to whom its people bent their knees. Ah, there
it was at last! It had reawakened, and it was battling and struggling
for speech as before. Perhaps this time it would succeed! It was
strong enough to conquer in the end, and why should not the end have
come? Surely the fire in his brain must have melted that iron hand.
Surely, far away, _they_ were singing again. Where were they? Within
his brain?--or battling with the storm to reach him? What were those
wraith-like things--those tiny forms dancing weirdly on the roaring
waters? Ah, he knew. They were the elfins of his brain that had
tormented him with their music and fled at his approach. They
had flown from their little cells, and were holding court on the
storm-waves like fairies on the green. It was like them to love the
danger and the tumult and the night. It was like them to shout and
bound with the intoxication of the hour, to scream with the gale, and
to kiss with frantic rapture the waves that threatened them. Each was