Rose Emer stirred and moaned, and Polaris turned to her. He knelt again at the side of her couch and chafed her hands.
Running his fingers through his red hair, Oleric looked down at Polaris. A strange light shone in the blue eyes of the captain, and over his face spread a crafty and satisfied smile. He nodded his head as though a thought had come to him that pleased him much.
"Yourself and the lady here are not the only ones saved from the ship," he said at length.
"What? There are others that live?" Polaris asked quickly. "Who, and where are they?"
"In the opposite cabin of the fademe is the old man Zenas," Oleric replied, "and with him is the large and fat young man who made all of the jokes at the table on the ship. And in another fademe is the captain—Everson—and the two you saved from Sardanes, the giant Minos and the dark and splendid lady, Memene."
"What know you of Sardanes?" Polaris asked. "And how comes it that you speak our English speech, now that your tongue is loosened?"
Oleric smiled. "Though my tongue was idle on your ship yonder, my ears were not," he said, "nor were my eyes, and they gathered me much information. I know that you, whom they call the son of the snows, have lived a strange life and looked upon many wonders. But they are as nothing to the wonders which you are to see presently—and I, Oleric the Red, shall show them to you." He laughed soundlessly.
"But the language—where learned you the English tongue?" Polaris asked again. "Surely it is not spoken in this Maeronica, this land whereof no man has ever heard."
"Many years ago I learned it—from the lips of a slave. He, too, had been taken from the deck of a ship which was sunk by the fademes," was the answer of Oleric. He regarded Polaris keenly. Nor was that reply without its effect.
"Slaves!" Polaris cried. "Is this another of the laws of this land of yours—to make slaves of strangers?"