n the full glare of the chandelier.

The girl's face was presented in profile. It was exquisite in beauty,
pale, delicate with a certain pleading sadness which stirred us to the
heart.

An element of romance and a touch of personal interest such as we had
not looked for suddenly entered into our adventure.

Colonel Smith's mind still ran back to the perils of the plains.

"She is a prisoner," he said, "and by the Seven Devils of Dona Ana we'll
not leave her here. But where are the hellhounds themselves?"

Our attention had been so absorbed by the sight of the girl that we had
scarcely thought of looking to see if there was any one else in the
room.

Glancing beyond her, I now perceived sitting in richly decorated chairs
three or four gigantic Martians. They were listening to the music as if
charmed.

The whole story told itself. This girl, if not their slave, was at any
rate under their control, and she was furnishing entertainment for them
by her musical skill. The fact that they could find pleasure in music so
beautiful was, perhaps, an indication that they were not really as
savage as they seemed.

Yet our hearts went out to the girl, and were turned against them with
an uncontrollable hatred.

They were of the same remorseless race with those who had so lately lain
waste our fair earth and who would have completed its destruction had
not Providence interferred in our behalf.

Singularly enough, although we stood full in the light, they had not yet
seen us.

Suddenly the girl, moved by what impulse I know not, turned her face in
our direction. Her eyes fell upon us. She paused abruptly in her
playing, and her instrument dropped to the floor. Then she uttered a
cry, and with extended arms ran toward us.

But when she was near she stopped abruptly, the glad look fading from
her face, and started back with terror-stricken eyes, as if, after all,
she had found us not what she expected.

Then for an instant she looked more intently at us, her countenance
cleared once more, and, overcome by some strange emotion, her eyes
filled with tears, and, drawing a little nearer, she stretched forth her
hands to us appealingly.

Meanwhile the Martians had started to their feet. They looked down upon
us in astonishment. We were like pygmies to them; like little gnomes
which had sprung out of the ground at their feet.

One of the giants seized some kind of a weapon and started forward with
a threatening gesture.