"I don't know what a Yax-Tarkas is," I replied, "But I know that my blade will cut you down if you don't depart this woman's side at once."
His only reply was an angry grunt. He then came at me with sword drawn. In my student days in Paris I had astounded my teachers with my ability as a foilsman. Fortunately, on Mars they fence in the Parisian manner and I was soon able to run the pleasure-bent Yax-Tarkas through and then dispose of his body in a pit beneath the ruins.
When I returned to the heavy-breathing girl I suddenly gasped. "Isis!" I cried. For she, indeed, it was.
"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?"