Before the madman was out of her house, Rose Emer had called up Washington on the long-distance telephone, and had spoken with the Secretary of the Navy.
Enough of English had the Sardanians learned to understand the words of Polaris, when he shouted that he had found a ship, and their glad exclamations were mingled with those of Zenas Wright, as the three sprang to meet the returning explorer.
"A ship, said I," Polaris said, lifting his hand, "but naught did I say of men or rescue. 'Tis the Felix, caught fast in the rocks by some mischance that is our great good fortune. She has been abandoned." He made haste to explain how he had found the ship. "Unless Scoland found means to empty her, which seems unlikely," he continued, "she has that on board to keep us four in comfort for years, if need be."
Breaking camp at once, they followed his lead through the mountain gap to the rocky shore.
Aye, there lay the Felix, right enough, and snug in her basin, but how were they on shore to reach her?
Polaris did not delay for long in solving that problem. Stripping Minos's sledge of hymanan wood of all its load, he set it afloat in the basin. It served him in lieu of a raft. For a paddle he took his long spear and poled his improvised craft out on the still waters of the miniature sea. It floated him safely, although his weight submerged it so that the water lapped at his ankles.
"Give me that flask, old Zenas Wright," he cried joyously. "I'll warrant you wait not long for the filling of it now, even if I have to desert this stout boat, and swim to the ship."
In a few minutes he had poled his way to where the Felix lay, her decks far aslant, but her rail still above water. To board her, he was forced to leap from the floating sledge. He caught the rail with his hands and pulled himself aboard. He clambered up the tilting deck and forced the forward hatch, which had been battened down by Scoland's men. Below decks he found all right and tidy. A glance into the hold discovered its stores of supplies almost intact. At least, he and his companions faced no menace of starvation.
Returning to the deck, he made his way aft, and opened the cabin hatch. He found the storeroom where the ship's supply of spirits was kept, and smashed in the door with a blow of his foot. Smiling as he did so, he filled the flask of Zenas Wright.