e
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 center 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 shall the truth learn, because not difficult to us shall it be the
language that she speaks to acquire since to our own it is akin."

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
should yet discover some means of mastering the Martians by dealing them
a blow from within.

It had been expected, the reader will remember, that the Martian whom we
had made prisoner on the asteroid, might be of use to us in a similar
way, and for that reason great efforts had been made to acquire his
language, and considerable progress had been effected in that direction.

But from the moment of our arrival at Mars itself, and especially after
the battles began, the prisoner had resumed his savage and
uncommunicative disposition, and had seemed continually to be expecting
that we would fall victims to the prowess of his fellow beings, and that
he would be released. How an outlaw, such as he evidently was, who had
been caught in the act of robbing the Martian gold mines, could expect
to escape punishment on returning to his native planet it was difficult
to see. Nevertheless, so strong are the ties of race we could plainly
perceive that all his sympathies we