"I think that I shall be in time," Polaris said grimly. "If I am not, then I think death shall find me on the road—and be welcome."
Zenas Wright, hearing these things, and marveling, became troubled.
"Wow!" he said to the lieutenant. "I can believe anything now. To-day I have seen a living mammoth, and I felt about three thousand years old myself. And now, too, look out for squalls."
CHAPTER VII
POLARIS MAKES HIS CHOICE
Dawn, the cheerless gray of clouded winter, crept over the city of Adlaz. In her bed in the prison-palace of Bel-Tisan the dark-haired Princess Memene of Sardanes lay, and beside her was her new little son. But Memene was not well, and Rose knew she would not live.
"Oh, that Minos were here to see!" Memene said faintly. And again—"It is the king he was so sure of." She smiled at Rose. "It is the king, my sister. And he shall be named Patrymion, after a man who is dead—a very brave man." And smiling, she passed away.
When she could control her grief—she had come to love Memene dearly—Rose summoned Brunar and told him what had befallen. The captain heard her sorrowfully, for he had honored and admired the Sardanian princess and pitied her sad circumstance. He sent the old woman out to fetch a younger one to care for the child. And then he brought men to bear Memene away. Out of the kindness that was in him, the captain looked to it that she lay in a fair and pleasant spot, and not where the common people of Ad buried their dead.
Persuaded by Rose, and because he had some knowledge of English and could bear the message, Brunar took horse at noon and rode down to the harbor, there to seek Minos.