I saw Mercer hesitate. An expression of surprise came over his face. His
body swayed; he took a single step forward, half turned, and then fell in
a crumpled heap.

CHAPTER VI.

MIELA.

The girl stood quiet beside the tree, watching Alan as he tied up his
boat. She continued smiling. Alan stood up and faced her. He wondered what
he should say--whether she could understand him any better than he could
her.

"You speak English?" he began hesitantly.

The girl did not answer at once; she seemed to be trying to divine his
meaning. Then she waved her hand--a curious movement, which he took to be
a gesture of negation--her broadening smile disclosing teeth that were
small, even, and very white.

At this closer view Alan could see she was apparently about twenty years
old, as time is reckoned on earth. Her body was very slender, gracefully
rounded, yet with an appearance of extreme fragility. Her slenderness, and
the long, sleek wings behind, made her appear taller than she really was;
actually she was about the height of a normal woman of our own race.

Her legs were covered by a pair of trousers of some silky fabric, grayish
blue in color. Her bare feet were incased in sandals, the golden cords of
which crossed her insteps and wound about her ankles, fastening down the
lower hems of the trousers. A silken, gray-blue scarf was wound about her
waist; crossing in front, it passed up over her breast and shoulders,
crossing again between the wings behind and descending to the waist.

Her hair was a smooth, glossy black. It was parted in the middle, covered
her ears, and came forward over each shoulder. The plaits were bound
tightly around with silken cords; each was fastened to her body in two
places, at the waist and, where the plait ended, the outside of the
trouser leg just above the knee.

Her skin was cream colored, smooth in texture, and with a delicate flush
of red beneath the surface. Her eyes were black, her face small and oval,
with a delicately pointed chin. There was nothing remarkable about her
features except that they were extraordinarily beautiful. But--and this
point Alan noticed at once--there was in her expression, in the delicacy
of her face, a spiritual look that he had never seen in a woman before. It
made him trust her; and--even then, I think--love her, too.

Such was the strange girl as Alan saw her that morning standing beside the
tree on the bank of the little Florida bayou.

"I ca