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!

Regan looked at them, helplessly; they seemed a group of heads—heads, nothing but heads and eyes!

He fell down, insensible!

He did not open his eyes again until the noonday sun was blazing down. They were still standing, headless, waiting! Regan staggered to his feet. Through all his cruelty, through all their miserable years, they had yet faith, strong and perfect faith, that this man, their king, would and could restore them to their old life! And Regan knew he could do nothing!

All the land and sea and air began to burn in a transparent glory. The sun itself was lost in a greater splendor. Dim, golden forms in tremulous radiance moved ceaselessly. Vibrating chords of a transcendent song came thrilling all the space. Beyond this miracle of whitening glory, swept along in a chariot of purple and gold, was a great dim gate, rising as one dark cloud rises beyond a misty white one. Through these moving portals was a glimpse of a bewildering vision which made the star seem dark! So rise the God-lit heights of Heaven beyond the gates of pearl!

Yet Regan knew this was not Heaven. No; it was only a translation from the star to some greater glory. There were winged angels indistinctly flitting.

Regan saw hundreds of thousands of his bird subjects rise, until they seemed all to go. He feared there would be none left. Turning from him with songs of rapture, they rose into angels before his very eyes, as birds flying in flocks from a shady forest come into a sunshine of yellow light.

For hours the bewildering sight continued, engrossing his entire attention. Then the forms began to recede. First, he could not see the gate. Then the angels seemed only like stars. Then there was nothing but a cold blue sky after sunset.

Where he had seen flakes of brightness loosed from the throne, he looked at a dull, common sky, giving no hint of the sphere beyond.

He saw nothing. But they had been there. Where had they gone?

He gazed about to see if any of his bird people were left.

He had forgotten. They stood there yet, waiting, those terrible headless men! The assembled multitudes had looked upon the result of his experiment!

“Go away! go away!” shrieked Regan.

The revulsion of feeling was awful. He had been looking at the glory astray from Heaven. He looked on deepest human misery. He had not only spoiled more than twenty years of their existence—he had kept them back from translation!

“Go away!” he repeated, wildly. “What if Rondah should ever see these men!”

“We have waited over twenty years!” insisted the speaking heads.

Then Regan controlled himself and tried to imagine what he should do; he could think of nothing, nothing, unless he imprisoned them once more.

A footstep was heard beside him. It was Isabella.

“Oh! my sister, see them! They are here! I cannot save them! They will not go! What shall I do? The worst of all is they have the idea that I can save them!”

Regan was utterly confounded, hopeless.

“Thank God they live!” cried Isabella. “They are not dead!”

“I wish they were! Look at the heads!”

“All mixed up!” said Isabella, with a philosophical acceptance of the inevitable. “Regan, we will encase them in the pods and the heads will graft themselves to their proper places!”

So this was what they did. They corrected the misappropriation of heads, set them on the necks and sewed the ten bird men securely into ten empty pods.

“They will emerge at blossoming time with their troubles ended! I hope you will not experiment again!”

Regan said nothing. She had not seen the vision; she did not mention it. He left his sister and went to ponder upon his eventful day.

Isabella, as soon as she was alone, proceeded to experiment on her own account. Gathering the little heads which had been severed from the bodies she put each one into a pod.

“Whatever they may come to I do not know,” she said to herself; “but I will not help to kill anything! I don’t want deathless heads rolling about this bewitched planet after me!”