“Foolish man,” said the angel, “I am very sorry for you! The whole star is yours; for this one woman will you leave it, lay down your mission for which, of the race of men, you were particularly born? For a woman a world! For love a kingdom! For a remembered sentiment of Earth the substantial honor of a gift from gods!” “All for her!” answered Regan. “Will you return, take up age, toil of Earth, die?—most horrible of all, to die!” “Death is the most surpassing mercy of the life of man! Nothing is so dreadful as to live on forever!” answered Regan. “On Earth I can die! Remember Earth enough to pity human grief! Answer humanity with human gratitude! Let me go!” “I will take you back to Rondah, Regan! If you do not understand, remember Rondah was also a friend to a desolate old hermit, who lived alone in a comfortless hut in the lonely hills! In ten days, be ready!” He was gone like a vanished flash of light. “It was my friend, that grand angel of superhuman power! Why is he here? It is the one great purpose and prayer of a life brought beyond the grave! He whom I thought a helpless, feeble old man, whom I pitied for his weakness, forgot between times, the same that I saw lying dead, cold and still upon his shabby bed, he came here before me! This star he has shared with me! If there is a heaven, his Sun Island is a piece of it; ’tis blest with the security of a heaven! Do these things chance? Can Destiny be blind, be driven, blunder on such successes? Can these rulings be a part of stupendous chaos? Can nothingness do all things? Am I, are these rocks, do I live? Oh! if I could believe in that God of Father Renaudin! Alas! there is no God! But if there were one, infinite, loving, He would do this!” CHAPTER XII. THE HEADLESS MEN. It was now more than twenty years since Regan had cast the bodies of the headless bird men into a deep chasm. He looked up to see the sunrise after his angel friend had left him, and behold! those unfortunate victims of experiment were coming like ghastly shadows, falteringly, down the hill over which was the glory of dawn. With their heads in their arms, they stumbled along. Regan, for an instant, would have fled, but he stopped himself. Should a monarch run away from his own experiment? He defiantly waited the coming of the specimens of his mercilessness, with horror of their reproaches. They came close to him. He saw that the heads were also living, separate from the bodies! From the bodies, as they had lain upon the ground, had sprouted little heads, which had not grown, as they should, upon the neck. The many-headed creatures seemed all alive; they stood, complaining that they had not been able to find their own heads! It was one thing to call them “vegetables.” It was another thing to have vegetables with souls stand, asking a man to undo the wrong he had committed, but could never repair!