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!”
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!”