AMERICA!
"They say the wild man is going to live," said a voice.
"Yes, Doc Clawson says he'll pull through all right," said another. "He's had a close call, if ever a man had. I wonder who and what he is."
"So do I," rejoined the first voice. "Do you believe that, that he is a wild man?"
"Dunno. What you goin' to believe?" The first voice became confidential. "I heard Doc tell the mate that he hadn't spoke an English word in all his sick ravings, except 'Lady,' which he might have learned from the girl. Then there's the knife. Captain's got that. It ain't like no metal any one ever saw. There's letters on it Doc says are Greek, but nobody here can read 'em. Doc says he believes what the chap jabbers is Greek too."
"He's got a queer necklace, too," chimed in the second voice. "It's made of the same kind of stuff as the knife is, and strung with red pebbles. Wonder what they'll do with him?"
"Sh-h-h! Don't you let your wonderin' run away with you. Cap's actin' queerer and queerer. Did you notice him when he came aft this mornin'—after the talk he had with the doc? I tell you somethin's gone wrong, all right—"
Scuffling footsteps broke the tenor of the voices, and they faded away to a murmur, and then to silence.
Those scraps of a conversation drifted to the mind of Polaris, where for hours and hours a tiny spark of comprehension had been struggling back into being. They were the first words that his returning consciousness had understood.
He opened his eyes.