Lifting Rose's head on his arm, Polaris held the goblet to her lips and let the red wine trickle down. As he did so, the door of the cabin was opened from without. A man thrust his head through and shouted to Oleric in a strange though not unmusical tongue. The captain answered him a word or two, and the door was closed again. Polaris saw that the man wore armor of a pattern similar to that of Oleric, and that, like the captain's, his face was ruddy. But his hair was black, and he wore a short, curling beard. While the door was opened, the purr of smoothly running machinery could be heard, and with it a steady hissing, bubbling noise, like that of escaping steam.
Rose sat up suddenly and glanced around her with frightened eyes. She threw her arms around Polaris's neck and clung to him.
"You lay so still," she sobbed, "I thought that you were dead. But you are alive—alive!"
Oleric bent forward and spoke hurriedly.
"We are nearing the harbor of the city of Adlaz," he said. "I do not know when I shall have opportunity to talk with you again. But if it be not soon, wait; and accept with patience, even though it shall try you sorely, all that shall happen.
"Just now you asked me why I called you 'brother.' You saved me from the sea. On the ship yonder you and the old man Zenas, and another whom I grieve that I could not save, tended me when you thought that I was near to death. And after, when your sailors murmured, and they would have cast me into the sea, you guarded me from harm. All those things I know and shall not forget. That is why I call you brother. And back of all of those things there is still another reason, of which I hope to tell you soon. I learned from the slave O'Connell that the shake of the hands between men is a bond of friendship. Will you shake my hand, my brother?"
Polaris took the proffered hand in a grip that made its owner wince. "It seems that despite the laws of Bel-Ar, the king, I have found a friend," he said. "I shall try to be patient, Oleric."
"Hold your hand from anger," enjoined the red captain earnestly, "even though you be put to serve as a slave in the mines of Bel-Ar. And instruct your companions that they do likewise. Great days are coming upon Maeronica, and I promise you faithfully that you shall play a great part in them—"
He broke his speech suddenly.
Again the door swung open. Somewhere in the depths of the fademe a bell rang clearly. The noise of the mechanism ceased. The black-bearded man who had thrust his head into the cabin before, stood in the doorway and beckoned to Oleric.