Polaris set the girl down and in the same motion spun on his heel and struck the man under the ear.
Well it was for the Maeronican sailor that the son of the snows, quick as was his anger at the affront to the girl, remembered the counsel of Oleric. Even as he struck, he remembered, and he opened his hand; else the stroke, directed by his mighty thews, had ended all things for the sailor. As it was, the blow partly lifted the man from his feet and shot him sprawling through the open door to fall heavily outside.
From its peg on the wall the captain caught down the short-bladed sword and tore it from the sheath. At a word from him, his two remaining men plucked knives from their belts and closed in.
Prospects of battle cleared the last of the numbness from the limbs of Polaris. He thrust Rose Emer behind him. He ran his eyes hastily over the cabin in search of a weapon, but saw none which would serve him. In another instant he would have sprung barehanded against the Maeronican steel.
At that juncture a voice cried out, and Oleric the Red stepped over the fallen sailor and entered the cabin. Whatever may have been the failings of the red captain, slowness in action was not one of them. Gripping the two crouching sailors, each by the belt from behind, he tugged so mightily that their feet flew from under them, and they sat hard on the cabin floor. With a catlike leap, Oleric reached the side of the captain of the fademe and struck the sword from his hand. As the blade clanged on the floor, Oleric set his foot across it. Then, and not until then, did he seek to learn the trouble's cause.
"What now, comrade," he said to Polaris. "Do you then court death so soon?"
But when he heard of the sailor's action, he nodded his red head.
"So would I have done," he said shortly. He turned on the other captain and spoke to him sternly in the Maeronican tongue. Almost choking in his rage, the commander answered him in sneering tones, and with a shrug of his shoulders stalked from the cabin. The sailors slunk after him.
Oleric watched their departing backs with a hard and level stare. "Daelo grows insolent," he said. "He thinks, because I have had the misfortune to lose a fademe, that I shall get no pretty welcome from Bel-Ar. Maybe he is right. Bel-Ar loves not to lose his ships. Ah, well—" He, too, shrugged his shoulders, and then he smiled.
"And you, my brother—" He shook his finger at Polaris. "Unless you learn to curb that fine spirit of yours, I need to be no prophet to foretell what shall befall you. But come; let us leave this place. The air of it grows foul."