Like the shape of a mighty wheel with four spokes was the plan of the city of Adlaz—or more like a circle drawn around the angles of a cross, the curved line of the outer boundary passing through the far-flung arms. Built in a long-ago time of perils and wars, Adlaz was a walled city, and its wall was both stout and high, and set with many castellated towers. It was also a very ancient wall, to which its moss-grown, weather-worn gray stones bore witness.
In all of the sweeping circumference of the outer wall, which enclosed some ten square miles of street and square, there were four breaks only, and those were protected by ponderous gates of bronze and guarded well by soldiers of the king. Those breaks were where the rim of the wheel met its four spokes. The wall was the rim. The spokes were four wide roadways, which ran east, west, north and south from the city's center. The hub of the wheel was a park or esplanade, fronted on all sides by magnificent buildings in which the colored rocks hewn from the Maeronican quarries were blended splendidly. In the very center towered the massive structure of the Temple of the Sun, built all of white marble, the tips of its hundred spires capped with solid gold.
Other and many streets were laid out in all directions within the angles of the four great avenues; but none was so wide as they by many feet. Within the wall dwelt nearly half a million souls, Maeronicans, if one named them from their country, but loving to call themselves the Children of Ad, after their city, which in turn drew its name from a certain mighty king, the time of whose rule was so lost in the mists of dim antiquity that he was little more than a tradition in the mouths of the people.
Across from the Temple of the Sun, and in the northeast angle of the arms of the cross, stood the palace of the kings of Maeronica, another immense pile of masonry, built also of a solid color, not dazzling white as was the marble of the house of the god, but the deep, rich red of granite porphyry. Back of the palace lay the barracks of the king's guard of half a thousand picked men, his stables, and the quarters of countless servants. In the southwest angle was the Place of Games—a hippodrome and circus, with an amphitheater of black basalt of an age and splendor that would not have shamed the proudest days of seven-hilled Rome itself, although its foundation stones were laid long before Remus leaped over his brother's wall.
Around the hub and extending to the wall were the homes of the Children of Ad—nobles, captains, rich idlers, merchants, money-lenders, and the common people. In latter years, since Adlaz, strong and triumphant, defied her enemies, it had been the pleasure of many of her wealthier sons to build their mansions beyond the sheltering wall of the city, and along the four splendid roadways stretched many a fair and wide estate. Such were those the prisoners from the fademes saw as their car was driven up the long, black road from the harbor in the mountain.
It was late afternoon, and the sun was casting his last slant rays over the distant mountain-rim, when the car was halted at the bronze gates of the western entrance to Adlaz. The red captain trotted his horse forward to parley with the captain of the gate-guard and explain why he led Brunar's horsemen, and who were these whom he brought with him to the city. That parleying was added to by one of the riders in steel. Whatever he told the gate-captain, it did not add to that worthy's esteem for the captives, for he favored them with an exceedingly evil look as they rode through his gates.
"Ugh-h," remarked Ensign Brooks, "I can't say that I care for that party. He has a lean and hungry look. Speaking of hunger, I wonder how soon we will get where we are going to, and whether it will be supper time when we get there. I could eat cat right now, I'm so near to starvation."
Oleric heard him and replied with a smile. "You shall eat soon, and of good fare. So much at the least I can promise."
To which the ensign replied with a stare. For the young naval man did not like the red captain and his ways, whom he blamed partly for the loss of the Minnetonka and all of the rest of the troubles, of which this land seemed to hold a plenty.
Soon after the car entered the gates, the sunlight faded into dusk, and then white-capped messengers passed through the streets, plucking the cloth hoods from globes which were fixed on posts of stone at intervals along all of the ways. From each globe, as its hood was removed, sprang a broad circle of white light. On the tall buildings and their many spires and on the towers of the city wall similar lights flared up.
Except for the quaint architecture of the place, and the strange garb of the folk who thronged its streets, the Americans might have imagined themselves entering some stately capital of the modern world, and not Adlaz of Maeronica, the oldest of all peopled cities of the earth—older, indeed, than many among the buried ruins in which archeologists love to delve.
For its pavements were curbed and guttered, and between them and the building fronts and lawns were walks of stone, bordered by well-ordered rows of trees and many shrubs and beds of flowers. The people who walked the streets, too, were quiet and orderly folk. They stared hard at those who rode in the car, but there was no unseemly outcry. Only an occasional shout of surprise and welcome went up as some group of strollers recognized the merry face and flaming poll of Oleric the Red.
At all of these marvels the two Sardanians gazed wonderingly and talked together of them in their tongue.
"Ah, surely here is one of the greatest cities of the world of men, my prince," said the Lady Memene. "Note the mighty towers yonder and how they flash and gleam. And the folk! In one short ride we have seen enough of them to people two lands like our own lost Sardanes."
"Aye, Memene, these be wonders, indeed," Minos answered. "And here is a kingdom and a city well worth the ruling over. Yet these, even these, must be as nothing to the things beyond in the greater world, whereof Polaris hath told us. I wonder if we shall ever reach them. For myself, though, I find this land and its folk more to my manner of understanding than the world-dwellers way to the north. Here, methinks, one might, did opportunity offer, carve out a kingdom for the king that is to come."
Memene flushed and hung her head, and the two of them lapsed into thoughtful silence.
Truly, Minos of Sardanes lacked not in ambition.
"Too late, now, to hope to meet Bel-Ar the king before the morrow," Oleric said. "And perhaps that is as well. By another coming of Shamar his wrath may have cooled somewhat, though 'twill still burn hot enough, I'll wager."
The charioteers drove their car to the front of a long, low building, the façade of which verged almost upon the pavement of the black avenue which was known as Chedar's Flight, because of an ancient battle which had been fought along its course. There, the riders of Brunar left the car and clattered away up the street to their own place. A group of street idlers surrounded the car and began to discuss its passengers, taking note especially of the giant form of Minos and the beauty of the two ladies.
"This was a palace, once, but it serves as a prison, now," Oleric said to Polaris, as gates of bronze were thrust back and the charioteers drove through and into a roomy court, partly paved and partly lawn and trees. "Sorry I am, comrade, that this must be, but 'tis not of my working."
"I blame you not, friend," said Polaris. "But other days bring other fortunes. I do not think that I shall stay long in your prison. And it comes to me also that your king best had let this party depart his land in peace, else the next turn of the wheel may bring to him that which he least desires. And I think that you may have a hand in that turn, Oleric."
"Are you a prophet, my brother?" exclaimed Oleric, searching the face of Polaris for a hidden meaning. "For if you be not one, then you have a rare spirit."
"No prophet I," Polaris answered. He sprang down over the wheel and stretched his weary limbs. "Only at times, when all seems black, my heart does whisper courage, and then all things turn well. It did so just now, when I saw the lights spring up along that splendid street out there." He held up his arms and assisted Rose Emer to alight from the car.
Oleric gazed at him curiously. "So you think that the wheel will turn, and that I will have a hand in it, my brother, do you?" he whispered to himself. "Perchance I shall."
He swung down from his horse and cast the reins to an attendant.
"What! Mordo! Where do you tarry? Here be guests for you," he shouted.
They stood in the dusk under the spreading boughs of an ancient oak and waited while a tall, loosely built man, black-bearded, and clad in the armor of gold that was the badge of power in Maeronica, came down from a pillared porch on the other side of the court and shambled across. They noticed that his step was somewhat uncertain, and once or twice he stumbled as he approached.
"Mordo, captain, and keeper of the king's prison house," Oleric muttered to Polaris. "He's a good fellow, but does love his wine cup exceeding well."
As the prison keeper came across the stones and the grass, he shouted, and an underling ran to him, swinging a lighted globe encaged in a metal net. Mordo took the lamp and cast its rays on the party. His face was flushed, and his eyes rolled until they saw Oleric. Then his mouth gaped in a delighted grin.
"Hoy! Hoy!" he exclaimed. "By the wall and the beasts and the shadows of the fathers of Ad, if it is not my old bottle-crony come sailing home again! I thought my ears had lied when I heard that voice in the dark." He set the lamp down and pitched forward, steadying himself with his hands on Oleric's shoulders. "And the same old dekkar, eh?" (A dekkar was a broad goldpiece of the coin of Maeronica.) "They said that you were gone across the black river, but I believed them not. 'Not Oleric,' I told them. 'Not so long as there is left unemptied a single one of those long-stemmed bottles in old Mordo's cellar.' And I was right, eh, old firetop? Ah! Many a glass shall clink to-night, and many a rack be made lighter when Brunar and the others come."
Mordo threw his head back and laughed, a roaring gale of mirth.
"Why, I was so lonely to-night that already I have cracked two flagons, just for the good wine's company."
"So it seems," put in Oleric, sniffing. "Are you sure there were only two of those flagons?"
"Mayhap it was three; I care not; there's still space for more, as you well know," Mordo replied, still shaking with laughter. He took up his lantern again.
"But whom do you bring with you to Mordo's house?" he asked, peering once more at the strangers. "Women, too! And pretty ones!"
"Have an end to your banter, Mordo," Oleric interposed. "These be six guests for whom Bel-Ar will ask accounting. Hold them well. And harken, old friend; treat them kindly and to the best you have, for they did befriend me when I was in evil straits and sore in need of friends. That tale you shall hear later. Now hasten and bestow them. They are weary. And bethink you, man, your wine grows stale with waiting to be drunk, and my throat aches for the smack of it."
Through his porch and into the depths of the building beyond, Mordo led the party. Along many halls and passages he led, and through gates and doors of bronze and steel, whereof an attendant bore the keys.
An ill place, this, to come out of, thought Polaris, noting the strength and number of the gates. Nor did the son of the snows relish at all the grim clanking of chains which issued from certain of the chambers which they passed along their route.
At length the jailer paused, in a hall so wide that its boundary walls could be seen only dimly by the light of the few globes which hung from its pillars of black stone, and so lofty that the pillars' tops were lost in the upper dusk. The hall was circular, and all around its walls were the doors to lesser chambers.
"Here may your stranger friends from the sea await the pleasure of Bel-Ar in peace," hiccoughed Mordo. "And 'tis better by far for them than some of the places that I have below, as you know, Oleric. Kings have sat in judgment here, and the beds in yonder chambers—queens have slept on them. May your guests sleep well, old fox; I can offer them no better, no better lodging place than the audience-hall of the great King Bel-Tisam. I'll send them meat and wine. Now haste we to those bottles. Shamar send that Brunar be not long delayed."
"Here I must leave you for a space, my friends," Oleric said. "I would have you believe that I am not ungrateful for many good deeds remembered, and I hope yet to find the means to repay them. To-morrow I will go with you before Bel-Ar the king."
He bowed and went out with Mordo.
Presently came men with an abundance of fresh-cooked meats and trenchers and tall bottles of Maeronican wine.
Little heart for conversation was there among the seven friends. Each was busy with bitter thoughts. They ate, sitting on cushions about a low table which the attendants spread for them at the foot of one of the pillars. The two women, weary from the events of the day, soon went to their rest. Old Zenas Wright was not long in following their example.
"I'm growing old, boys," he said as he left the table. "And this has been a hard day—a terribly hard day. We appear to have strayed far into the yesterdays. To-morrow we will talk, and it will be strange if we cannot between us figure our way out. I don't want to leave my old bones in this place. I intend that they shall be buried in Woodlawn Cemetery in Buffalo, near where I was born; ah me, where I was born. I vow and vum, I've seen some mighty queer sights since I walked up Main Street last."
The geologist turned and trudged sturdily away to the chamber which he had selected for his own.
Soon only Polaris and Lieutenant Everson were left in the great hall, Janess lying stretched on the floor, his head pillowed on his hand, and the lieutenant standing gloomily with folded arms, his back resting against one of the pillars. For many minutes those two talked of the things which had befallen; but neither one had a plan to offer.
"We must trust to the wit of this Oleric, of which I think he has plenty," said Polaris at length. "I believe that he wished us no ill, and I believe, too, that he forms some scheme for our advantage, though what it is I cannot guess."
"I don't like him," Everson said bluntly. "He is one of this nation of devils whose submarine sank my ship. Oh, for a few files of marines and a couple of twelve-inch guns!"
When Everson had gone, Polaris still lay at the foot of the pillar, thinking and planning, for he was a man in whom hope never died. He dozed at length, but suddenly he was wide awake. And, though he did not at once open his eyes, his wilderness-trained faculties, keen as those of any animal, were alert and watchful.
Something had come into the hall.
Nothing in living shape ever had struck fear into the heart of Polaris, and he had a healthy disbelief in the supernatural. He was not afraid now. But he felt that the presence that had entered the hall was both baleful and menacing. He felt the fixed regard of hidden eyes, and it sent an uneasy thrill through the roots of his hair at the back of his head. Whatever it was that had wakened him, it was not in the direction of the chambers where the others of his party lay, but far across the hall.
Cautiously he opened his eyes.
At first he could make out nothing. Then something stirred soundlessly from behind a far pillar near the wall. Polaris stared hard, and his eyes were almost more than mortal keen. For a fleeting instant he saw it clearly—the shape of a tall old man with snowy beard and hair, and with piercing eyes, full of evil. The man was dressed in flowing robes of white, on the breast of which glittered some object of burnished metal.
For an instant only the vision persisted on Polaris's retina. Then it was gone, and with no sound that even his sharp ears could catch.
Polaris snapped himself to his feet and bounded across the hall on the balls of his feet, almost as noiselessly as the shadow which had departed. And it had departed. Along the wall and behind the pillars Polaris glanced quickly. There was nothing there. Back of the pillar where he had seen the white shape was the closed door of a chamber. He tried the door and found it fast. He listened.
From the darkness beyond the closed door, he thought he heard the ghost of a thin chuckle. Immediately his attention was drawn to another quarter. Close behind him arose a deep growl, which had nothing ghostly in its quality, but was most material. Polaris spun upon his heels.
Some ten feet from him, and beside one of the pillars, from the foot of which it evidently had arisen, stood a huge dog. It was the first animal of its kind which the son of the snows had seen in Maeronica, and the largest he ever had set eyes on in his life; larger by far even than gray old Marcus, his friend and comrade that he'd left behind in Boston town.
This brute was neither Great Dane nor mastiff, though in points it resembled both of those breeds. Its jaws were square, and its head and neck were massive. The tips of its powerful shoulders were a long yard up from the stone floor where it stood.
It was smooth of coat and of a glossy, blue-black color, except on its breast, where was a triangular patch of tawny yellow. Its ears had been clipped and stood erect and pointed. As it regarded the man, its big eyes glittered in the dim light. Its lips were writhed back from formidable teeth.
Another low growl rumbled from its deep chest.
Instinctively, dogs trusted Polaris. He had had much experience with their kind, and never had he seen one that in the end he could not make his friend. Unhesitatingly he extended his hand and crossed the floor to where the big beast stood. He guessed that it must have come in with the old man whom he had glimpsed, and had been left behind when the silent visitor had made his hurried departure. As he drew nearer, Polaris saw that the animal wore a broad leather collar, bossed with gold.
Unhurriedly, the son of the snows approached the brute until there was not the space of a yard between them. There he paused. The dog neither shrank nor cowered, but waited with muscles tensed and teeth exposed. Polaris was very watchful.
"Good fellow," he said.
At the sound of the man's voice, the dog shifted his position slightly. His head swayed. From Polaris's face he glanced to the outstretched hand. The bristling hackles at his neck subsided. He took a stiff step forward, then another. The tip of his cold muzzle touched the man's fingers. He sniffed. A long, red tongue crept forth and licked Polaris's hand. Another step, and the brute rubbed his great head against the man's thigh.
"Ah; I thought you would," said Polaris. "Come on." He turned and crossed the hall to his sleeping chamber. The dog padded beside him on silent feet. The last thing the son of the snows heard, after he had called Brooks to take the watch, and closed his eyes to slumber, was the sigh of the huge beast as it stretched itself before his open door.
Worn of body and of nerves, Polaris slumbered deeply. Shamar rose high in the east and lighted the golden spires of his mighty temple in Adlaz town; still the man slept on, and as he slept, he dreamed. Far into the white, mysterious southland his fancies led, to a waste of ice and snow and bitter winds. He drove a team of splendid dogs—his gray brothers they seemed to be in the dream, those tried friends who had given their lives for their master, and of whom Marcus, if he still lived, was the last.
On the sledge which the dogs drew, rode Rose Emer, wrapped in furs, as in truth she once had ridden. There, too—and even in the dream he seemed strangely out of place—was the Maeronican captain. Yes, Oleric the Red trudged through the snows beside the sledge, clad in his golden armor, his teeth chattering in the chill blasts of the wilderness, and bearing in his hand a naked sword.
Danger, unseen, unknown, but frightful, encompassed the wanderers in the snow path. The dogs snarled and tore at their harness. Oleric ran forward, waving his sword, which seemed to drip blood on the white snows, and shouting.
"Up, brother, and call off this beast of yours!" the red captain cried. "For soon must we go before Bel-Ar."
With those words ringing in his ears, Polaris awoke. He sprang from his couch to the middle of the chamber. No dream's part was the shouting of Oleric. He stood in the hall before the chamber door, his lips still parted and a smile on his ruddy face.
And the snarling of a dog—that, too, was real.
Planted squarely in the doorway, hackles bristling, ears erect and fangs bared, was the immense animal with which Polaris had made friends in the night watches. All through the dark hours and the dawning, the beast had guarded the door, suffering none to approach it. He now barred the way to Oleric, and the chamber echoed to his angry challenge.
"By the ten kings!" exclaimed the captain with a laugh. "You do raise up friends wherever you go, my brother. Here is one that dearly would love to make a breakfast off my lean shanks, armored as they are, and all because I would tell you that Shamar has brought to us another day."
At the call of Polaris, the dog backed out of the doorway, but still with a wary and suspicious eye to the movements of the red captain.
Mordo, the prison captain, was not in attendance, but certain of his servants were spreading the table near the center of the hall. The Americans and the Sardanians were gathered in a group about one of the pillars.
Everson looked wan, like one whose pillow had been ridden by evil visions. The others of the party seemed in better spirits and were talking among themselves. Zenas Wright gave evidence that his scientific zeal had only lain dormant. For now he noted all about him with a keen and kinding interest, paying his attention especially to the architecture of the lordly hall which had housed them, and its sculptures, of which there were many. Young Brooks' interest was fully as keen, if more material, as that of the geologist. The eyes of the ensign were all for the table preparations.
Seeing the party thus, and the broad bands of sunlight which streamed into the hall through windows of crystal high in the masonry, Polaris grew shamefaced.
"Now it seems that I alone, who of all should be wakeful, have slept dully like a wintered bear," he muttered.
"'Tis well. You have gained strength which perhaps shall not come amiss," Oleric answered.
Near the center of the hall a fountain played, its spray falling through a bar of sunshine which changed the silver drops to gold as they fell. Calling his morning greetings to his friend, Polaris went thither and laved his face and hands and smoothed his mass of tawny hair. The dog followed close at heel and lapped greedily from the fountain's basin.
"Strange that this brute should be here," said Oleric. "Do you know what manner of beast this is that so befriends you, Polaris?"
Polaris shook his head; nor did he at that time see fit to acquaint Oleric with the circumstances of the dog's appearance.
"This is one of the dogs the priests keep at the temple of Shamar," the captain informed. "There are few of the breed in the land, and all are at the temples of the god in the cities. Almost as sacred are these brutes as are the bulls, whereof you already know, and are likely to learn more. The holy men do say of them that they are dwelt in by the souls of heroes passed away, whom Shamar chooses to guard his temple gates, even as the bulls are inhabited by the souls of dead kings.
"I do not believe such tales," he added quickly. "But now you will see why Bel-Ar will be more than passing wroth at the death of the bull, believing as he does that it is a dwelling place for one of his ancestors, and that you may, indeed, have slain his father or his grandfather."
Oleric, who had breakfasted, sat by while the others ate. The dog, from the collar of which the captain read the name Rombar, signifying thunder, stood behind the seat of Polaris and ate with dignity whatever his self-appointed master passed to him. But he would take food from no other hand, not even from Rose Emer, who liked all dogs.
Thereafter, sleeping or waking, the huge beast remained at Polaris's side, and none could coax him thence. And many Maeronicans deemed that strange. But as no man, not even Shamar's priests, dared to interfere with the sacred brutes, except when they played their parts in the ceremonials of the god, the attendance of Rombar upon the stranger was permitted.
Under a guard of mailed foot-soldiers, led by Brunar, who was a captain in the palace regiment, the prisoners were marched from the ancient palace of Bel-Tisam to the newer palace of Bel-Ar. At their right, as they passed up the street called Chedar's Flight, was the wall, pierced by many gateways, of the Place of Games, with its basalt amphitheater and its arena.
As they passed they heard the hoofs of galloping steeds, the rumble of chariot wheels, and the cries of the charioteers, where the young lords of Adlaz exercised their horses. From slits in the wall low down near the pavement, issued the howling and snarling of wild beasts; for a menagerie was a part of the equipment of the Place of Games.
Beyond the hippodrome, their way led around half the circle of the broad drive on which the four main avenues gave, and which surrounded the wonderful gardens of the Temple of the Sun. The Americans, three of whose number were widely traveled, marveled anew at the splendor of that mighty pile of white marble, its lofty columns, towers and domes, dazzling in the sunlight, their golden caps ablaze. Luxor and Karnac in the days when Pharaoh Rameses ruled in Egypt could not have shown the equal of this structure.
With armed men clanking on each side, the captives entered through a massive peristyle of vari-colored pillars which was the portal to the house of the king. Along a corridor in which four elephants might have found way and clearance to walk abreast, the guards conducted them. At each end of the corridor there stood ajar tall gates of bronze, their bars interlaced with heavy patterns of gleaming gold, encrusted with the luminous metal, known in Maeronica as orichalcum, and set with many precious gems.
Through the second gateway the prisoners were marched, and were in the audience chamber of Bel-Ar, the great king. It was similar in shape to the place where they had been quartered for the night; but there all similitude ceased. Bel-Tisam of old had sat in a plain and massive hall and been content. The house of Bel-Ar held treasures in metals and gems on its sculptured walls and pillars, aye, and on its floors, too, which could have paid the national debt of a wide and wasteful state.
Dull gold smoldered underfoot in the mosaic of the pavement. Gold and orichalcum glittered and shimmered on pillar and wall. Chairs and tables of stone and bronze and polished woods were heavy with the precious metal. Set in the bases of the seventy and six pillars which upheld the roof were patterns gorgeous in agate, lapis-lazuli, turquoise, quartz, and rock-crystal. Other and similar panels adorned the walls. Farther up, where the work in gold and orichalcum began—placed so high, perhaps, to be out of reach of avaricious fingers—were more precious stones. There topaz, moonstone, amethyst, opal, sapphire, diamond, and priceless ruby and emerald flaunted their hundred fires.
"Lordy!" muttered Zenas Wright under his breath to Ensign Brooks as they crossed the hall. "Give me a pick and a ladder and a half hour alone in which to use them, and you may have and welcome the rubies of Sardanes which went down with the Minnetonka."
Near a fountain, the jets of which fell and flowed over a grotto of opalescent glass lighted from within, sat the master of all this splendor, Bel-Ar, king of Maeronica and lord of the underseas. On no raised dais or lofty throne sat this monarch who was absolute in his own land. A high-backed chair of carved black wood sufficed him, raised from the flooring on a single slab of red porphyry, scarcely twelve inches high. On another chair at his right sat his queen. The two were in the center of a wide crescent of seats and benches, whereon sat the nobles and ladies of Maeronica who made up the court. Without the semicircle stood attendants and slaves. Farther back, ranged in a double line, was one full company, one hundred men, of the palace guard, all in bronze mail, and each carrying his bared sword.
Like a dull moth among a concourse of gaudy and fluttering butterflies was this powerful Maeronican king. He was attired simply in cloth of dark blue. A cloak of the same material had fallen back from his shoulders. On his knee rested a flat black cap of the same pattern that his meanest sailors wore. Only a light circlet of twisted gold, fashioned in the semblance of a slender serpent, set on his heavy black hair above his temples, and a short, broad sword which swung at his belt, distinguished the garb of Bel-Ar from that of the ordinary citizen of Adlaz.
Seeing these things, one looked into the king's face for royalty, and found it there. He sat with an elbow on the arm of his chair, his chin cupped in his right hand, so that it hid his mouth. His forehead was broad and low, his nose short and tilted slightly at its tip. His cheeks were rounded and well-shaped. His ears, almost hidden in the black hair, which was cut evenly around his neck, were small and delicately turned as a woman's. But every other feature was cast into insignificance and forgotten, when one looked at the king's eyes. Set far apart, they were extraordinarily large, and black, so that iris and pupil seemed as one. They were the eyes of a mystic, a far-seeing dreamer, but filled with subdued fires; eyes of a strong and self-willed man, one not to be tampered with or led. In contrast to them, the skin of the face was fair, almost pallid. The king's figure was above medium height, broad and powerfully framed. His years were not more than thirty-seven.
As the prisoners were brought near to him, Bel-Ar had fallen into a fit of abstraction. He gazed fixedly across the hall, seeing it not, nor its people and its walls. At his feet a little slave boy sat asleep, his head leaned against the leg of his king's chair, his small golden harp fallen across his lap.
If Bel-Ar was the dull moth, his consort, Queen Raissa, who sat beside him, was the most gorgeous of all the butterflies. She was younger than the king, by a full ten years. Her face was small and flower-like, with pouting lips and proud blue eyes that shone like stars. Hair yellow as the golden, shell-shaped comb which was set in it, was piled high on her head, and was yet in such abundance that two heavy braids fell down across her shoulders. She was robed in a graceful gown of pale blue, the bodice of which blazed with gems. Her fingers toyed with a costly fan, whereof the stem was ivory and the sticks the colored plumes of rare birds. She gazed curiously at the strangers whom the soldiers brought in, and when her eyes alighted upon Oleric they became eager.
At the edge of the open space just beyond the semicircle of the courtiers, the guards halted. For a few moments the silence in the hall was broken only by the low-toned gossip of gay lords and ladies, who paid scant attention to guards or prisoners. Then the queen touched Bel-Ar's knee with her fan and spoke a few words in his ear. He started from his reverie.
"Come hither, Brunar," he said in a deep, low voice. As he raised his head, it was to be seen that his chin was square and heavy, but that his mouth was lacking in the strength of his other features.
Brunar made his report, and was replaced by Oleric the Red, who bowed low before the king, his ready smile playing about his lips.
"You would make report of a fademe lost, Captain Oleric," said the king. "Doubtless a small matter to you, but meaning much to me, who ill can spare my fademes." He frowned.
"Not so, O king," replied the captain, composing his features and speaking earnestly. "As you know, not all of our engineers have learned to govern wisely the mighty force that gives the fademes life."
Bel-Ar nodded. "That is true," he said. "Now what of this engineer of yours?"
"Why, he was a careless fellow, and whoof! one day under his hands went engine and fademe. They lie in fragments on the sea-bottom near the great south cape on the way to the ocean named Pacific, and the crew lies with them."
"How is it, then, that you stand here to make report?"
"My star watched over me, O king. I floated to the surface, alone of all the fademe's crew. On the wreckage of the cabin I floated. I had by me my hamess (mask). I donned it. Later my senses departed me. I was taken up by a ship from the northern world, and was treated with kindness by these whom you see here. Driven by storm, that ship came to the coast of Maeronica, and—"
"Enough; I had the rest of the tale from Brunar," interposed Bel-Ar.
"But of your mission to the far Pacific? What of that?" questioned Raissa, leaning forward eagerly.
Again Oleric smiled, and smiling, drew from his belt a small leather bag. He advanced, and kneeling, handed the bag to the queen.
"Oh! Lovely!" she gasped as she poured a part of its contents into her palm—pearls, five score or more of them, as fine as ever came from the ocean bed, she held. One great and lustrous globe of faint rose-pink she seized upon with a cry of delight. She held it out toward the king. "See! Is it not beautiful?" she exclaimed. She turned to the red captain.
"You have done well, indeed, good Oleric," she said quickly. "My king shall forgive you for the lost fademe, the losing of which was surely no fault of yours. And these—these be worth many fademes to me." She selected two of the pearls of fair size and goodly sheen and gave them to Oleric.
"You did venture your life to get them. Perchance some maid of Adlaz town shall look on you more kindly for the gift," she said.
Bel-Ar frowned; then he smiled, too.
"Well, Raissa has said it. I must agree, I suppose. I forgive you the fademe," he said, somewhat dryly, while the lords and ladies laughed. "Only sail no more ships at present, captain. Get you to the harbor, and there for a space relieve Atlo as captain of the port. I have need of him at the Kimbrian Wall, where the robbers of Ruthar have grown overbold.
"Now, another matter." The king's brow clouded. "Which of these foreigners slew the bull of Shamar? This one surely." He pointed to Minos. "Never saw I such a man."
"No, O king, not he," Oleric said. "He is from a far land in the southern snow wastes, which was destroyed by the earth-fires. There he was the king. The other one, the golden-haired man, it was, who slew the bull—to save a child—"
"Have done. The reason for the deed avails him not," Bel-Ar broke in. "Have him come hither, that I may judge."
Oleric fetched Polaris Janess into the space before the throne. The son of the snows advanced with a firm step and halted directly in front of Bel-Ar, where he gazed at the king with steady eyes. Close at his heels came the great dog Rombar.
"Why does the man not bow?" inquired Bel-Ar harshly. "Where learned he his manners? And how does it come that he is attended by a sacred dog of Shamar, that seems ready to do battle for him?"
In truth, Rombar, who feared not kings, was ready for battle. He stood at the side of Polaris, his hackles raised and a rumbling challenge in his throat.
Bel-Ar regarded the pair of them sternly, though many in his court found much to admire in the powerful form and steadfast demeanor of the son of the wilderness.
Oleric spoke hastily in English. "Bow, brother; bow to the king; though I fear that 'twill not mend matters," he grumbled.
Polaris inclined his head shortly and continued to meet the gaze of the angered king. "His bow is grudging enough," said Bel-Ar to the captain; "but no matter."
Just then a tall old man in white and flowing robes came forward to the left of Bel-Ar's seat. He was lean of face, like an ancient hawk, and like a hawk's was his thin, curved beak. His eyes glittered with malice. On his breast, done in gold in the garment he wore, was the likeness of the rising sun, the insignia of the priests of Shamar.
Well Polaris knew that shape and face. It was the master chuckler that had disturbed him the night before.
"This man is marked by Shamar," the priest said in a high, cracked voice, and regarding Polaris hatefully. "As for the dog, 'tis sent by the god to watch that the man escape not his doom."
"Oleric, hold your peace," said Bel-Ar, as the stout captain was about to speak. "And flout not the holy Rhaen, lest it be the worse for you. I will judge." The king paused and ran his eyes over the other prisoners.
"He that slew the sacred bull, he shall be given over to the servants of Shamar, to be done with as the god shall will at the feast of years. He that was a king, he shall now serve a greater king. Let him be sent to the harbor, where strong backs are always welcome. The other two young men shall go into my mines. The old one shall be a scullion in my kitchens, as harder work doubtless would kill him.
"Take the two women and the slayer of the bull to the prison and keep them fast until Shamar claims them for the feast. The women must die. The law commands that no foreign woman, however fair, shall live in Maeronica. So may the ancient blood never be tainted. I have judged. Let it be so, and so writ down, unless the holy Rhaen, chief servant to Shamar, has other claims." Bel-Ar looked inquiringly at the priest.
Now it chanced that Lieutenant Everson, face to face with the man by whose decree his ship had perished, had fixed on the king a glance of undying hatred. None had noted it except the priest, Rhaen, who saw all things. He now asked that the naval man be turned over to the god along with Polaris. Bel-Ar nodded his assent.
At a sign from the king, Oleric led Polaris back to his companions. The judgment was ended. The guards closed in around the prisoners and marched them away.