"Let me at 'im!" the crazed man shrieked. "Hi'll tear 'im with me bare 'ands!"
Polaris pushed him back.
"I am sorry, very sorry, for what he has done," he said. "But he is my good friend, and I shall not let him come to harm. He did but follow the instincts of his nature."
Melton stared at him for a moment, and then, weeping and cursing, retired to his cot. Far into the night Polaris heard him moaning and mumbling to himself, and pitied him.
Janess hid the weapon under his own pillow. Then with strips of his bedding he wove a stout cord, and thereafter when he slept he tied Rombar fast to a leg of the bed.
Days passed away—ten days, eleven, twelve, and still another. And yet there was no sign of Oleric. Polaris's stout heart sank.
In the dark hours of the fourteenth day he awoke. He heard the grating of bronze hinges. At the side of his bed, Rombar growled softly. Polaris snatched the hood from the light.
The door of bronze was open. The mitzl rays shone on the tall form of a man in golden armor.
Oleric had come!