ence was finally rewarded, for we saw the soldier returning,
slowly leading a woman. In her left arm, which the soldier held, she
carried something white which wriggled occasionally. All this we
considered so favourable a development that we went out again, bowing to
the women about us, petting the children, and looking as peaceable and
amiable as the politest of Earth's people. But it may have passed for
imbecility, or worse, on Mars.

When I looked toward the soldier again, my heart began a queer thumping,
for he was leading no other than the woman who had met us at the gate,
and she was carrying our white rabbit, which we had released early that
morning a long way from this spot.

"By all that is wonderful!" I exclaimed to the doctor, "if we have not
fallen upon a country which is ruled by yon dumb queen, and she brings
to us as a peace offering the only thing that we have lost!"

"Since when have potentates learned to beg, and forgotten to command and
to exact?" he answered with half a sneer. "See, she still extends her
hand to every one she passes."

And as the soldier, trained to revere a beard, led the woman directly up
to the doctor, she stretched forth her pretty palm again; but if he had
presumed to take it I could have struck him! To my cordial grasp I added
a kiss this time, and then I raised my eyes slowly to her face, fearing
to see that blank look again. There _was_ no look in her eyes; they did
not look, they only wandered!

The soldier, who still held her other arm, waved his cross-bow toward
the palace meaningly, and a hush fell upon the murmuring crowd. I
ignored him and spoke to her,--

"If thou art the queen, command me but by a look or sign, and I obey.
And if thou art not the queen, then they should make thee one. Dost thou
wish us to follow thee to yon palace?" said I; but the only mind that
understood scoffed at my rapturous declamation.

The woman merely drew her hand from my warm clasp and stretched it out
to the people, who crowded about and paid her no attention. Then the
soldier, as if suddenly remembering, took the rabbit from her arm and
handed it to me. She looked about at this, as if missing the snuggling
animal, and I stared hard at the meddling soldier to reprove him for
interfering with his queen, and gently restored the rabbit to her arm.

"The soldier wishes us to go to the palace," put in the doctor. "But we
must not go unarmed. He may be leading us into an ambush. Let us