"My name is Dina Taurus," she replied. "I do thank you for aiding me. For your kind act, though, I fear you will incur the wrath of all Maroom." "My own Isis," I continued. "Whom I have not seen for nearly two dozen reincarnations. Don't you remember me? Have you forgotten Egypt, my love?" "You speak, sir, of love," the girl said in a tender voice. "I was about to bring up the topic myself. I feel somehow that even though you are shorter than most you are a man I could someday marry and kiss freely. I fear I have never met you before." "Look, look," I said, beginning to draw a map of the solar system in the dust of the alley with the tip of my recently engored sword. "Look there." I proceeded to explain where the planet Earth was in relation to Mars and then where Egypt had been. I told of our great love on that spot. "No wonder I haven't been able to find you again," I concluded. "You've been reincarnating here on another planet. Be that as it may, Isis, we are together again." "As you talk and as I look at your handsome face it comes upon me more strongly that I am fond of you. Isis, however, I am not. Dina Taurus, a simple shopgirl, is who I am. As Dina Taurus I sincerely hope you will find your way clear to love me." She was my own Isis and yet she had no recollection of it. I determined to court her under whatever name she was using. Once you have loved a woman such as Isis it is hard to shake the habit. "Dina Taurus you shall be," I smiled. "Dina Taurus, I love you and ask your leave to pay court to you." "My leave you have had since the moment you leaped into this fetid alley," she replied tenderly. "Tell me, by the way, what is your name?" "My name is Lowell Hawthorne." From behind us a grim voice spoke, "Lowell Hawthorne, we take you prisoner in the name of the City and County of Maroom." A dozen heavily armed men had approached us quietly while we had talked of love. "What is the charge?" "Killing a Yax-Tarkas and throwing him in a pit. Come along with us." To my new found Dina Taurus I whispered, "Just what is a Yax-Tarkas, my love?" "The talent agent for the Great Games," she gasped as the lawmen carted me away. That is how I came to be sentenced to fight in the arena of Maroom. Chapter 5: In The Dungeons My cellmate in the dark stone room under the arena was a handsome tanned man named Joel Lars. We soon became fast friends, not merely because we were padlocked together but because we shared a great community of interests and also believed in the manly virtues and a planned program of daily exercise. "We will not be called into the arena for many days," Joel Lars told me. "Unfortunate," I said. "For I have only now re-met a girl for whom I have searched many centuries on many worlds." "Too bad," he replied with real sympathy. "Speaking of girls, would you care to hear my story?" "It would help pass the dark hours here."