Chapter XIII: Can We Go Back?

Roy and Isabella were watching the Earth rise, when Regan, having assured himself of his powerful friend’s assistance, came to tell them of their leaving the star.

He pitied their homesickness. It was he who had robbed them of a life’s happiness. There had been no particular gift to them from the star.

They could see the continents now upon the world.

“Would you like to go back, Roy?”

Roy did not answer. The whisper which never left him held him from replying; he only looked sharply at Regan and listened to the words, “Duped, duped!” in his own ear. Isabella answered:

“Would we return? Oh! gladly, yes! A world in possession does not make a woman happy! How tired I am of these rainbow seas! I wish I could look at still blue water! How tired I am of these flying people! I wish I could see Rondah’s old grandmother hobble by with her crutch! I am disgusted with the possession of gold and silver and glass—of wealth and station where these things are worth nothing! I am smothered in these low clouds, in the hot breath of this uncooled planet! Regan, you do not jest? We can go back?”

“Yes; we shall go back to-morrow!”

Next morning a huge meteorite, a mile in circumference, hung, enveloped in a heavy cloud, above the surface of the star.

Father Renaudin would not return. He could not leave his people and his cathedrals. He gave orders for several sacred books, which Regan was to procure for him if he could do so.

“My place on the Earth is gone from me,” he said. “God is most kind. He gave to me a small sphere and more time. I shall belt this star with one holy faith.”

Isabella wondered that he was more pleased with his distracting congregations of elf men without much understanding than with all the assemblages of grand, sinless bird men.

“He thinks he can improve the little sinful elves,” said Roy. “It gives him something to preach to!”

The world was nearing. The meteorite must be launched. With tears, Isabella bade Father Renaudin an everlasting farewell.

“We shall not meet even in Heaven, for you will not get there for ages!” she sobbed.

But the angel folded them away and they whirled out into space.

“Father Renaudin must not return!” said the angel. “He has lived long past his allotted days. He is a dead man on the Earth!”

They flew much swifter than Earth or star. They swung into the clouds of a storm on Earth and, in a moment, were upon the height where they had been thirty-three years and four months before.

“Look!” cried Isabella.

The two looked at the angel. In the storm, dark on the Hermit’s Hill, there stood no angel! A bent, feeble, blind old man was there!

Gregg Dempster!

“Two days to find Rondah!” he said to Regan. “Isabella, Roy, farewell! Be happy on Earth! Know the star was never for you! The star is for Rondah!”