developed with such materials to work upon. Why, then, should you be
surprised to find that it prevails here as well as upon our planet?
Intelligent life could find no more suitable abode than in a human body.
The details are simply varied in accordance with the environment--a
principle that works on the earth also."

I was not altogether satisfied with the reasoning--but as to the facts,
we had to believe our eyes.

Palatable food was served to us, and during the waking time Edmund was
frequently engaged in his mysterious conversation with the "queen."
Within forty-eight hours after we had set out in the air ship, he came to
us, wearing one of his enigmatic smiles, and said:

"I've got another aphroditic word for you to remember. It is the name of
our hostess--Ala."

We were not so much surprised by this news as we should have been but for
what had occurred at the caverns, where he had discovered the patronymic
of Juba.

"Good!" cried Jack, "it's a fine name. I was going to call her Aphrodite,
myself, but this is better as well as shorter."

"But, Edmund," I said, "how does it happen that these people, if they
converse by 'telepathy' as you say, and as I fully believe, nevertheless
occasionally use sounds and words? I should think it would be all one
thing or all the other."

"Think a moment," he replied. "Is it so with us? Do we not use signs and