"Quite a find!" Sam said. "We ought to learn no end of things from studying it, if we can keep it alive." "Quiet!" I whispered. "Don't wake her! But where did you get it?" "Tore it out of a curious pouch on the back of the old one. A cunning little creature, isn't it?" "Not to my way of looking at it!" "I wonder what it eats? Most likely it's carnivorous. The claws would suggest as much. And that assumption would demand that there must be large game of some kind to support the winged plants." Sam carried the little monster on into the galley. In half an hour, since he had not come out, I left the sleeping girl and went in to see him, fearing that he had been bitten or stung by the thing. I found him with the grotesque little creature perched contentedly on his finger, sucking with the thin pink tentacles at a wisp of cotton he had soaked in condensed milk. An odd thing I noticed about it. The little bloom on the end of the body, which had been purple a short time before, was now white, flushed only with a pale pink glow. "It's as friendly as a kitten," Sam said. "I'm going to name it Alexander. No reason why it should not develop into a young conqueror." "Keep it, and give me a pet rattlesnake!" And it was well he did keep it. CHAPTER XVI Xenora of Lothar I went back to the beautiful sleeping girl, and sat down again in my rapt contemplation of the quiet charm of her face. She was breathing quite normally, and the face bore a slight smile of pleasure. Suddenly she moved, and the eyelids were raised. Clear violet eyes looked straight into mine--they were those eyes that have haunted me always. "Melvin Dane!" she breathed in a voice that was low and musical and wholly delicious. She knew me! She spoke my name! Truly, it was the Green Girl! She was aware of the meeting of our minds upon the ether! "My chieftain of dreams!" From beneath the light covers she reached a slender rounded arm, white, with just a hint of green tan. I took her hand in my own, feeling a strange thrill at the touch. After a moment of hesitation, when I struggled fiercely with that thrill, relaxing to it briefly, I put her hand quickly to my lips, and then released it. I did not feel capable of speech. For all the hours since we had found the girl, I had been undergoing a storm of emotions--alternate joy and despair. Now, when the Green Girl actually smiled upon me, I forgot all my old dreams of how I would cross oceans and voyage through space to take her in my arms. I sat still, with a curious lump in my throat, in incredulous joy, not daring even to surrender to the delicious thrill of her touch. She laughed softly and questioned, "From whence did you come, chieftain of my dreams, or am I dreaming still?"