He was awake from delirium, and his head was clear. To all appearances his mind still wandered. A little observation taught him when a sailor brought him food from the cook's galley, and when to expect the visits of the doctor. They soon found him changed in one respect. He accepted food, and once or twice they surprised him floundering weakly about the little cabin. But he showed them no brightness of mind. His glances were vacant, his manners those of an imbecile almost.
He bided his time.
His strength came back to him slowly, although he concealed that fact. They were far up the coast, not two weeks journey from New York, when he first came to a realization of being, after his long siege of brain fever and weakness. In those two weeks he took every measure to prepare himself against their landing on American soil.
He knew not at all what he should face, but he wished to be ready for it with all his old-time strength and agility. Not entirely could he disassociate his mind from the idea that opposition and trouble must be answered with the strength of one's body.
The man who brought the food and the physician who tended him came only in the day time. Therefore Polaris spent most of his days supinely in his berth. At night he was supremely active. Up and down the narrow confines he paced. He leaped lightly. He stretched and strained each limb and muscle.
Hour after hour he endured the severest "calisthenics"—not those taught in the gymnasium, but anything and everything in the line of the motion to which his surroundings lent themselves.
At length the Felix day in Quarantine. The next day they would dock. Scoland would meet and accept the homage of a nation which had gone temporarily wild over his exploits. Before that landing he would dispose of the living problem which lay and gibbered in the berth in the cabin that had been Burleson's.
Privately Scoland made arrangements with the authorities at a big institution for the care of the insane up the river. They were to send for the man. The captain explained that the patient was a member of his crew who had lost the balance of his mind due to the hardships he had endured.
That night Polaris checkmated all the captain's carefully made preparations. Tense with excitement, the son of the snows had realized that they lay near the land. Then he had seen it from the port. Snatches of talk of the sailors told him that it was New York at last—the city of his dreams. One scrap of conversation focused all his long-nursed doubts.