One searching look she gave him, poignant with inquiry. With hands extended as though to ward back a danger, she stepped in front of Minos's couch.
"Ah, well I know thee!" she exclaimed. "Thou are that stranger from the North come again to Sardanes. Thou wert his enemy. Thou wouldst not harm him now? Thou canst not have the heart! See, he hath suffered much and lieth low—"
"Nay, nay, save thy fears, lady," Polaris answered in the ancient tongue. "Polaris fighteth not with sick men, and would be friend to Minos and to thee. From many a hundred leagues to the north hath he come hither to save whom he might from the doom which this man's knowledge told would fall on thy land." He pointed to Zenas Wright.
"My mind recalleth thee not, lady," he continued. "Of what house art thou, and how named?"
"Memene, daughter of the Lord Karnaon, am I," replied the girl proudly; and still more proudly, "I am the bride of Minos, King of Sardanes."
"And, lady, art thou and the king the last to live in all the valley?" asked the son of the snows eagerly. "I can see sign of none others."
"We be the only Sardanians who have not passed the Gateway," the girl replied, "save Kalin the priest, alone, who fared north with thee and the Rose maid."
"Then art thou indeed the last," Polaris said, "for Kalin died out yonder in the snows, and these hands did bury him.
"Now, lady, take the rest thine eyes do tell me thou needest so much. All shall be well with thee, and thy husband lieth safe in the care of a skilled man. An thou gainsayest me not, I will feed thy gray beasts yonder, and clear thy doors of the carcass of the snow-wanderer there. When thou are refreshed again, we fain would hear from thee how it went with you, how Sardanes fell, and how it is that we found thee so."
With the ax of Minos, Polaris hacked apart the carcass of the huge bear and hung it in sections along the outer corridor, reserving it for food for the beasts. Indeed, the six dogs of Minos were almost friendly with him after they had taken a meal at his hands, receiving the fresh meat ravenously after a long diet of smoked flesh.