tive nose stood forth in the midst of their ceaseless play like
a perpetual interrogation point that would have electrified the Sphinx
into life, and set its stone lips gabbling answers and explanations.

The girl looked on, partly astonished, partly amused, and partly
comprehending. Sometimes she smiled, and then the beauty of her face
became most captivating. Occasionally she burst into a cheery laugh
when the professor was executing some of his extraordinary gyrations
before her.

It was a marvellous exhibition of what the human intellect, when all its
powers are concentrated upon a single object, is capable of achieving. It
seemed to me, as I looked at the performance, that if all the races of
men, who had been stricken asunder at the foot of the Tower of Babel by
the miracle which made the tongues of each to speak a language unknown
to the others, could be brought together again at the foot of the same
tower, with all the advantages which thousands of years of education
had in the meantime imparted to them, they would be able, without any
miracle, to make themselves mutually understood.

And it was evident that an understanding was actually growing between
the girl and the professor. Their minds were plainly meeting, and when
both had become focused upon the same point, it was perfectly certain
that the object of the experiment would be attained.

Whenever the professor got from the girl an intelligent reply to his
pantomimic inquiries, or whenever he believed that he got such a reply,
it was immediately jotted down in the ever open notebook which he
carried in his hand.

And then he would turn to us standing by, and with one hand on his heart,
and the other sweeping grandly through the air, would make a profound
bow and say:

"The young lady and I great progress make already. I have her words
comprehended. We shall wondrous mysteries solve. Jawohl! Wunderlich!
Make yourselves gentlemen easy. Of the human race the ancestral stem
have I here discovered."

Once I glanced over a page of his notebook, and there I read this:

"Mars--Zahmor."

"Copper--Hayez."

"Sword--Anz."

"I jump--Altesna."

"I slay--Amoutha."

"I cut off a head--Ksutaskofa."

"I sleep--Zlcha."

"I love--Levza."

Aha, Professor Heidelberg!

When I saw this last entry I looked suspiciously at the professor.

Was he trying to make love without our knowing it to the beautiful
captive from Mars?

If so, I felt certain that he