"Dangerous," was a word I caught them whispering as they went. I laughed a little. The four faces over me made odd grimaces, tightening their lips, and gripping my legs and arms with greater effort. The doctor—Fillery—noticed it.
"Easy, remember," he addressed the four. "There's really no need to hold. It won't recur." I nodded. We understood one another. And, with a smile at me, he left the room, saying he would come back after a short interval. A link with my source, a brother as it were, went with him. I was lonely....
I began to hum songs to myself, little fragments of a great natural music I had once known but lost, and I noticed that the four figures, as I sang, relaxed their grip of my limbs considerably. To tell the truth, I forgot that they were holding me; their grip, anyhow, was but a thread I could snap without the smallest effort. The songs were happiness in me. Upon free leaping rhythms I careered with an exhilarating rush of liberty; all about space I soared and sank; I was picked up, flung far, riding the crest of immense waves of orderly vibration that delighted me. I let myself go a bit, let my voice out, I mean. No effort accompanied my singing. It was automatic, like breathing almost. It was natural to me. These rhythmical sounds and the patterns that they wove in space were the outlines of forms it was my work to build. This expressed my nature. Only my power was blocked and stifled in this confining body. The fire and air which were my tools I could not control. I have forgotten—forgotten——!
"Got a voice, ain't he?" observed one of the figures admiringly.
"Lunies can do 'most anything they have a mind to."
"Grand Opera isn't it."
"Yes," mentioned the fourth, "but he'll lift the roof off presently. We'd better stop him before there's any trouble."
I stopped of myself, however: their remarks interested me. Also while I had been singing, although I called it humming only, they had gradually let go of me, and were now sitting down on my bed and staring with quite pleasant faces. All their dim eight eyes were fixed on me. Their forms were not built well.
"Where did you get that from, Guv'nor?" asked the one who had spoken first. "Can you give me the name of it?"
The sound of his own voice was like the scratching of a pin after the enormous rhythm that now ceased.