id.

"You, Georges! You!" I stammered. "Is it really you? Keep still, and let
me touch you."

I put my hands on his face, and stroked his hair, and felt his body. I
could no longer doubt that I had him before me in the actual flesh, but
he read my thoughts.

"You are mistaken, Camille," he said. "My real body is asleep on Mars."

"So you still live?" I exclaimed. "You have solved the great problem.
And Iclea?"

"Let us sit here and talk," he replied. "There are many things I want to
tell you."

My fears had vanished, and I sat by my beloved friend.

"It seemed to me," said Georges, "that my fall from the balloon knocked
me senseless. When I came to, I was lying in the darkness with the
ripple of lake-water breaking on my ear. What amazed me was a strange
sense of lightness that made me feel I could rise up and float away if I
wanted to. Thinking this was a disorder of the mind, I did not attempt
to move, but watched with wondering eyes the sky above me. It was
lighted by two strange moons. When the day broke, and showed around me a
world of unimaginable splendour, I knew the meaning of the two moons and
of my strange feeling of lightness. I was a disembodied spirit that had
been transported to Mars.

"Do you know, Camille, that the soul is able to choose its mortal
covering? This is, at least, the case on Mars. For some time I wandered
about in an invisible form, studying the conditions of life there.
Animal strength, I found, counted for nothing. The Martians are an
aerial race, with exquisite senses, which respond in a way unknown on
earth to spiritual influences. Do you remember I read your thoughts when
we first met, and answered them before you spoke? That is one of the
Martians' gifts. Finding that these wonderful faculties were better
developed in the women of Mars than in the men, I chose the feminine
form for my reincarnation."

"And Iclea?" I said.

"Iclea," said Spero, "was re-born in a masculine shape. It was partly
because of the mystic attraction that I felt for her that I chose the
other form. Neither of us remembered our earthly existence, but a vague
yet deep sentiment of our spiritual relationship made me seek her out
and unite myself to her. It was your beloved muse Uriana," he added,
"who revealed the ties that bound us in our former lives.

"Owing to their superior faculties, the Martians have carried every
science to a perfection undreamt of on this earth. In astronomical
observation