From that day strength came back to the son of the snows with surprising rapidity, considering that he had been so ill. Nor would he chafe in restless idleness, but demanded work to do. Soon in the five great camps of fighting men his figure and that of the huge black dog which followed him like a shadow were as well known to the soldiers as were those of Everson and the lieutenant. Under the tutelage of the Goddess Glorian, he had advanced in mastery of the Rutharian tongue much faster than either of the other two Americans; for he was a natural linguist and did not find the ancient language difficult.
Old Jastla had come down out of his hills, and it was his particular pride to superintend the training of the son of the snows in the use of the arms of Ruthar. At his first trial, weakened though he was by his illness, Polaris cast a javelin farther by half a score of paces than could any warrior of Ruthar. Within a fortnight, although they might touch him by tricks of fence, there was not a swordsman in the five armies who could wear him down in the play of blades.
Jastla boasted of him throughout the land.
But though he took pleasure in all these things, he knew anxiety with the passing of the days, and in his heart pined mightily for news of his lady in Adlaz town. For that strong, true heart could not forget. Occasionally Oleric had word from over the wall from some of his secret spies in Maeronica, but never a word of the welfare of the stranger captives.
All of his story Polaris had one day told to Glorian. And she had smiled and cheered him with brave words. And then, when he had gone, she had sat for the half of a day in her chamber, looking out at the snow-capped hills of Ruthar, striving to remember that she was a goddess, and to forget that she also was a woman. Too late she found that the woman conquered.
Five weeks went by from the day when Polaris first went down to the workshop of Zenas. And then the geologist announced that he would give a show. He had some wares which he was anxious to display, he said.
Near the south bank of the Illia, above the city and beyond the camp, stood an old stone tower which long had been crumbling into decay and which Atra, the zind who ruled in Zele-omaz, had purposed some day to tear down. There it was that the geologist said he would stage his performance, and all the camp and a goodly part of the citizens of the town went thither to see what he would do.
At the appointed hour, early in the afternoon, the scientist rode out to the tower, attended by three of his assistants from the laboratory. With them they took a number of cakes of what looked remarkably like the bars of brown soap wherewith the American housewife labors o' Mondays. As much as two men could carry of the stuff they took. The third man bore a rude battery which Zenas had contrived, and a coil of copper wire which the Rutharian smiths had drawn for him, and which he had insulated with woven fiber dipped in gums from the forests.
The tower had been a massive old structure, covering nearly a half acre of ground, and the lower parts of it were still solid. Its roof was gone, and portions of the upper walls had fallen in.