chunk of rock; flung it. The rock came, very much as a hurled rock would, on Earth. It struck Atwood's shoulder. The girl turned, and with a leap made off.

"I'll be damned," Atwood muttered. His caution, this time, was gone. He jumped, went thirty feet, landed on his side. Already the girl was gone. Then he saw her as like a monkey she went up a vine-rope. He tried it; hauled himself up with amazing speed. On the vine-top he tried running. But after a leap or two, with the girl far ahead of him, he found himself entangled, floundering in the matted mass of vines. His gun had been knocked from his hand, lost as it fell down into the leafy abyss.

The girl, apparently less afraid of him now, stood a hundred feet away, balanced on a swaying, rope-like vine as she peered at him.

"All right," Atwood muttered. "I guess I can't catch you."

Certainly he had no idea that she could understand him. But, suddenly, she laughed—a little rippling rill of human laughter, mingled with awe.

"You speak my language?" Her soft voice was amazed. English! It was quaintly, queerly intoned. But English nevertheless. And she added, in wonderment. "Who are you that you speak the language of the Gods?"

He could only stare, wordless. And abruptly she was coming forward; slowly at first, and then, overcoming her fear, she jumped and landed beside him.

He seized her. "Look here, who the devil are you?"

"Me? I am Ah-li, Goddess of the Marlans."

"Well," he said. "Whatever that is. Anyway, be reasonable. I'm Roy Atwood. I've just come from Earth. You came from there, too, of course. When did you come? Your people, are they around here?"

She seemed only able to stare at him as though numbed. Seemingly, she understood his words, but certainly not their meaning.

"The Earth?" she murmured at last. "What is that? My people? They are here, of course. The Marlans." Her slim white arm gestured out over the forest-top. "I am Goddess Ah-li." Wonderment was in her dark eyes and in her voice. "And now you come—a God, like me."

Her voice faltered. She was trying to smile. "I am afraid I do not understand," she murmured. "A Man-God coming here to rule with me. Never did I think that could happen."

For a moment, as he sat there clutching the girl in the tangled vines 

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