Zenas Wright ran to the sledge and fetched a small medicine case and a leather-covered flask of brandy. Polaris helped him to scramble over the rock to the inner corridor.
"'Ware the dogs," the young man cautioned. "Keep well away from them, or they will have the clothes from off your back. There are some things to be done out here, and then I will join you."
The scientist hastened along the passage. By the leaping firelight he surveyed the strangest room that ever he had seen in all his threescore and odd years. The huge carved chests, the cloths and rugs of strange materials, the quaint utensils, the weapons of iridescent ilium, lighted the fires of enthusiasm in his eyes.
"Marvelous!" he said. Well as he would have liked to stop at once, and handle and study those curiosities, he hurried on, giving a wide berth to the snarling brutes, which gave him no friendly greeting. He reached the side of the couch and bent above the still form of the king.
With expert fingers, the old man felt the wrists of Minos. "Um-m, he's not so bad," he muttered. He unbound the bandage from the king's head and inspected the wound in the sick man's temple. It had been a deep gash and a wide, but it was nearly healed. Zenas Wright found a small flagon and water, in which he mixed a draft of the fiery brandy. Supporting the king's head on his arm, Wright forced his lips and teeth apart and poured the strong spirit down Minos's throat.
The sick man coughed weakly, but swallowed the liquor. Almost immediately a line of color crept across his white face. He turned on the old man's arm, his head wavered from side to side; then he settled himself, and his deep, regular breathing indicated that he had passed from swooning into sleep.
From the king the geologist passed to the girl. He lifted the long, dark tresses from her face. "A beauty, or would be if she was washed," he commented. For Memene's cheeks were stained with tears, and grime from the floor where she had fallen, and smeared with blood that had jetted from the polar bear.
Polaris's fire was blazing hotly, and the room was warm. Wright loosened the girl's dress at the neck. He poured a few drops of the brandy into her mouth. Finding a small cloth, he dipped it in water, and laved her face and hands. Fear, rage, and despair had combined strongly in the shock which brought about her faint, and she did not respond at once. When he saw that her breathing was becoming easier, the old man left her, and set about re-dressing the wound on the head of the sick man.
He was busy with scissors, bandages, and ointment, when he heard a gasping cry behind him.
Over him stood Memene. Far above her head, in the grip of both hands, she swung the flashing ilium sword of Minos. Zenas Wright let fall his bandages and shrank, startled fully as much by the rage of suspicion and anger in the girl's face as by the menace of the glittering blade.