The walls of the room were broken away.

The eyes of the world looked in upon him and the wise men of the world kept pace with him up and down the room, shaking their heads and saying: "It is not possible!" But the fact lay there to contradict them.
Prometheus stole fire from heaven and paid it back to an eternal death.
The old cattleman was refusing his payment.

It was no state of coma in which he lay; it was no prolonged trance.

He was vitally, vividly alive; he was concentrating with a bitter and exhausting vigour day and night, and fighting a battle the more terrible because it was fought in silence, a battle in which he could receive no aid, no reinforcement, a battle in which he could not win, but in which he might delay defeat.
Ay, the wise men would smile and shake their heads when he presented this case to their consideration, but he would make his account so accurate and particular and so well witnessed that they would have to admit the truth of all he said.

And science, which proclaimed that matter was indestructible and that the mind was matter and that the brain needed nourishment like any other muscle--science would have to hang the head and wonder! The eyes of the girl brought him to halt in his pacing, and he stopped, confronting her.