If the sleep had not been almost death, they would have wakened to mourn with him, those tender-hearted, sympathetic bird people. As it was, they moved not while the awful sobs sounded in the drear house. But why did Regan read, and again read, those cruel words, “Good-bye?” When day came he strengthened himself with food and went out to see if there was not a frozen bridge to the isle. No; only a place where over the shallows of lava there were formed little, shifting, flake-like spots of ice. Then Regan brought the great sledges and for three days he ceased not to throw cargoes of snow into the sea where the waves were so shallow. Not pausing for night, as if to save a lost soul, he worked for three terrible days, and he had almost bridged the short way. One sledgeful fell. It struck on the invisible wall and rolled into the waves. “I will not be stopped!” shrieked Regan. With all his power he struck the wall; he threw himself against it, he cast ice at it. He went back to the house, took another drink of the stimulant, returned with a heavy sledgehammer which three bird men could not swing. With this he struck the wall, that wall which could not be seen. The concussion knocked the hammer from his hand; the shock threw Regan into the snow. The wall remained. Like Rondah, he called the name of the one whom he loved. A new horror came upon him—he was going to sleep! “My God, not this!” he cried when he saw it was sleep and not weariness. “My God, not this and Rondah still lost! Mercy! mercy!” He dashed ice-cold water on his face. He deluged his head and hands with snow. He again roused himself with draughts of the powerful stimulant and rushed back to the wall. He was sure that she was there. “Oh, death of years,” he cried, “stand back until I find her, or come forever!” Of all the star’s promise Regan neither remembered nor thought. That with it they must live he had forgot. Only for time to find her! Half-asleep, he struggled over the narrow, icy trails to that wall only to fall in the snow beside it. Do you not hear it, Rondah? So near, can tinkle of diamond leaves and hum of musical air drown that horrid call, as Regan, beating the wall in despair, helplessly fighting off the sleep which comes with the force of the star itself, a force as resistless as that of tempest or earthquake, falls with that paper clutched in his hand, the paper with “Good-bye” written on it? CHAPTER XXI. FORGETTING REGAN. The years passed changelessly in the Sun Island, an emotionless period of waiting, only serving to make her forget the past, forget everything which she ought to remember, Rondah thought.