not captured their provision train," said Colonel Smith, "we
have done something just about as good. We have foraged on the country,
and have collected a supply that I reckon will last this fleet for at
least a month."

"What's that? What's that?"

"It's just what I say," and Colonel Smith brought out of his pocket one
of the square cakes of compressed food. "Set your teeth in that, and see
what you think of it, but don't take too much, for its powerful strong."

"I say," he continued, "we have got enough of that stuff to last us all
for a month, but we've done more than that; we have got a surprise for
you that will make you open your eyes. Just wait a minute."

Colonel Smith made a signal to the electrical ship which we had just
quitted to draw near. It came alongside, so that one could step from its
deck onto the flagship. Colonel Smith disappeared for a minute in the
interior of his ship, then re-emerged, leading the girl whom we had
found upon the planet.

"Take her inside, quick," he said, "for she is not used to this thin
air."

In fact, we were at so great an elevation that the rarity of the
atmosphere now compelled us all to wear our air-tight suits, and the
girl, not being thus attired, would have fallen unconscious on the deck
if we had not instantly removed her to the interior of the car.

There she quickly recovered from the effects of the deprivation of air
and looked about her, pale, astonished, but yet apparently without fear.

Every motion of this girl convinced me that she not only recognized us
as members of 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 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 th