Mr. Sydney Phillips, standing by, and also catching the murmur of Colonel Smith's words, showed in his handsome countenance some indications of distress, as if he wished he had thought of those lines himself. The girl resumed her narrative: "Suddenly there dropped down out of the sky strange gigantic enemies, armed with mysterious weapons, and began to slay and burn and make desolate. Our forefathers could not withstand them. They seemed like demons, who had been sent from the abodes of evil to destroy our race. "Some of the wise men said that this thing had come upon our people because they had been very wicked, and the Gods in Heaven were angry. Some said they came from the moon, and some from the far-away stars. But of these things my forefathers knew nothing for a certainty. "The destroyers showed no mercy to the inhabitants of the beautiful valley. Not content with making it a desert, they swept over other parts of the earth. "The tradition says that they carried off from the valley, which was our native land, a large number of our people, taking them first into a strange country, where there were oceans of sand, but where a great river, flowing through the midst of the sands, created a narrow land of fertility. Here, after having slain and driven out the native inhabitants, they remained for many years, keeping our people, whom they had carried into captivity, as slaves. "And in this Land of Sand, it is said, they did many wonderful works. "They had been astonished at the sight of the great mountains which surrounded our valley, for on Mars there are no mountains, and after they came into the Land of Sand they built there, with huge blocks of stone, mountains in imitation of what they had seen, and used them for purposes my people did not understand. "Then, too, it is said they left there at the foot of these mountains that they had made a gigantic image of the great chief who led them in their conquest of our world." At this point in the story the Heidelberg professor again broke in, fairly trembling with excitement: "Gentlemen, gentlemen," he cried, "is it that you do not understand? This Land of Sand and of a wonderful fertilizing river--what can it be? Gentleman, it is Egypt! These mountains of rock that the Martians have erected, what are they? Gentlemen, they are the great mystery of the land of the Nile, the Pyramids. The gigantic statue of their leader that they at the foot of their artificial mountains have set up--gentlemen, what is that? It is the Sphinx!" [Illustration: _"Gentlemen," exclaimed the Professor, "these mountains of rock that the Martians built are the Pyramids of Egypt. The gigantic statue of their leader is THE GREAT SPHINX!"_]