a line before her. What weird, beautiful priestess was this? By what incredible science could it be that she was fashioned like a beautiful young earthgirl?

As we were stood upon our feet, with our captors at once withdrawing to line themselves near us, I saw that at each of the several door-openings which gave access to the grotto, other Zurians were peering in at us. And guards were here—men somewhat taller, with wide, powerful shoulders and smaller heads. Each of them held a long, pointed shaft of ice in his hand for a weapon, with his motionless figure tensed and his weird eyes alert upon us. Men who could with a single thrust of their powerful leg muscles hurl themselves in a bound half across the grotto.

For that moment we four stood silent, staring at the strange, beautiful creature reclining on the dais before us. Young Alan was numbed, blankly bewildered; Carruthers, seemingly less terrified now, gazed with a grim smile playing on his thin lips; and on the handsome, rough-hewn face of the giant Duroh, the panic of terror had gone. There was a look there now of open admiration; a bold confidence, an eager, predatory look.

Weird, transfixed tableau. It only lasted a brief moment, of course, while Tara stared down at us, calmly, musingly—a gaze of quiet, confident appraisement, her soft red lips gently curving into a questing smile and her cold, pale-blue eyes roving us. And then she spoke.

Amazing thing—it struck us numb, so that we could only stand and gasp.

"You look like earthmen," she said quietly. "Which is it, your language?"

English words, quaintly intoned, but English! Her voice was soft, with a queer limpid, liquid quality to it, in amazing contrast to the guttural way she had spoken to her Zurians. And her tone, her look, her gesture to us were quietly imperious.

"English!" Duroh gasped. "What luck! So you speak our language—well, that's fine. Blast me for a sleeping tower time-keeper but you're beautiful, whoever you are. Tell us."

"I am Tara," she said. The little smile that played on her lips was amused now as her gaze roved the six-feet-four figure of Duroh.

"Tara? Tara what?" he demanded. "You're an Earthgirl of course. You must be. Then how did you get here—"

It was dawning on me now; the only combination of possible circumstances which logically 

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