She turned to me with a little smile, as if such weirdly incredible adventures were to be taken as a matter of course. I could not speak for the pity and horror that were mingled with my admiration for her courage. But I could, and did, reach under the table and take her hand. Thereafter each of us contrived--after a fashion--to eat with one hand. That brief and puzzling account of her adventures was all that Xenora was able to give us until experience would enlarge our common vocabularies. Certainly it offered plenty of food for conjecture. She had little scientific knowledge; and when Sam continued his questions, the accounts she gave of the origin and meaning of the strange things she mentioned smacked more of myth than of history. "Has the Lord of Flame always been, Xenora?" "No," the Green Girl answered. "Back in the beginning, ten thousand lifetimes past, the men of Lothar ruled, and there was no Mutron to carry them to Xath. The warriors of Lothar were very brave. They fought the Lunaks, and hunted the beasts of the plain. The kings of Lothar reigned in a hundred cities that ringed the central sea, and there was food and joy for all. "But the Lunaks were very wise. When the great men of Lothar brought weapons of fire to fight them, they went into the jungle and laid an egg, and guarded it, and there sprang up the Lord of Flame! It is a serpent of green fire, as thick as a mountain and as long as a river! All the warriors of Lothar went to meet it, and it slew them with a breath of fire! It took slaves of our people and carried them into the fire-pit of Xath. "And from that day, through countless lifetimes, our people have been worshipers and slaves of the Lord of Flame. Those who are taken are no longer as men, but as sleepers walking, with the fire-crystal on their backs. They fly in ships of Mutron, the City of the Sleepers, and rule with a heavy hand in the name of the Lord of Flame. None escape them!" "Well, I'll be d--er--flabbergasted!" Sam exploded. His face was a study. Incredulous disbelief was there, and amazement, and something of fear and horror, too. What the girl said had all the earmarks of a fairy tale. But we had seen the metal upon her body, and the purple stains--and we had felt that sudden, inexplicable wave of fear. "Is it possible? Mel, it can't be! It's too fantastic!" I could make no answer. "And you, Xenora. You were taken by that thing?" I cried in sudden horror. "I was taken in a ship, and carried to Mutron, the City of Fear. There they fastened on me the fire-crystal. Then my mind was in a sleep, and my limbs did not what I willed. Until the ship fell my life was a nightmare of toil and terror. The Lunak took me, and I knew nothing until you found me."