her own race, but that she felt that her only hope
lay in our aid. Therefore, strange as we were to her in many respects,
nevertheless she did not think that she was in danger while among us.

The circumstances under which we had found her were quickly explained. Her
beauty, her strange fate and the impenetrable mystery which surrounded
her excited universal admiration and wonder.

How Came She on Mars?

"How did she get on Mars?" was the question that everybody asked, and
that nobody could answer.

But while all were crowding around and overwhelming the poor girl with
their staring, suddenly she burst into tears, and then, with arms
outstretched in the same appealing manner which had so stirred our
sympathies when we first saw her in the house of the Martians, she broke
forth in a wild recitation, which was half a song and half a wail.

As she went on I noticed that a learned professor of languages
from the University of Heidelberg was listening to her with intense
attention. Several times he appeared to be on the point of breaking in
with an exclamation. I could plainly see that he was becoming more and
more excited as the words poured from the girl's lips. Occasionally
he nodded and muttered, smiling to himself. Her song finished, the
girl sank half-exhausted upon the floor. She was lifted and placed in
a reclining position at the side of the car.

Then the Heidelberg professor stepped to the centre of the car, in the
sight of all, and in a most impressive manner said:

"Gentlemen, our sister."

"I have her tongue recognized! The language that she speaks, the roots
of the great Indo-European, or Aryan stock, contains."

"This girl, gentlemen, to the oldest family of the human race
belongs. Her language every tongue that now upon the earth is spoken
antedates. Convinced am I that it that great original speech is from
which have all the languages of the civilized world sprung."

"How she here came, so many millions of miles from the earth, a great
mystery is. But it shall be penetrated, and it is from her own lips that
we the truth shall learn, because not difficult to us shall it be the
language that she speaks to acquire since to our own it is akin."

The Professor's Astonishing Statement.

This announcement of the Heidelberg professor stirred us all most
profoundly. It not only deepened our interest in the beautiful girl
whom we had rescued, but, in a dim way, it gave us reason to hope that
we shou