en
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 note book 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"

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 would get himself into difficulty. She had
made a deep impression upon every man in the flagship, and I knew that
there was more than one of the younger men who would promptly have
called him to account if they had suspected him of trying to learn from
those beautiful lips the words, "I love."

I pictured to myself the state of mind of Colonel Alonzo Jefferson Smith
if, in my place, he had glanced over the notebook and read what I had
read.

And then I thought of another handsome young fellow in the
flagship--Sydney Phillips--who, if mere actions and looks could make him
so, had become exceedingly devoted to this long lost and happily
recovered daughter of Eve.

In fact, I had already questioned within my own mind whether the peace
would be strictly kept between Colonel Smith and Mr. Phillips, for the
former had, to my knowledge, noticed the young fellow's adoring glances,
and had begun to regard him out of the corners of his eyes as if he
considered him no better than an Apache.

"But what," I asked myself, "would be the vengeance that Colonel Smith
would take upon this skinny professor from Heidelberg if he thought that
he, taking advantage of his linguistic powers, had stepped in between
him and the damsel whom he had rescued?"

However, when I took a second look at