"Slaves!" Polaris cried. "Is this another of the laws of this land of yours--to make slaves of strangers?" "It is the law of the great king," Oleric said. "Few such have been taken alive, but they have lived as slaves or died on the sands of the arena to make sport for the people at the great games which are a part of the Feast of Years." * * * * * For a moment, even Rose Emer was forgotten. Polaris looked up at the Maeronican captain with a blaze in his eyes that boded little of submission to the laws of Bel-Ar, the king. When he spoke, it was very quietly. "Law or no law, backs shall break and spirits set out on their journeys before I shall become slave to any man." "But the maid here," interposed Oleric--"would you bring doom upon her as well as upon yourself? Be not so rash, my brother. 'All things come to him that waits,' was a saying of that slave from whom I learned your tongue--O'Connell, he did call his name. I know not if his saying be true. I know he waited many long years, and death came to him." Polaris shook his head slowly. "There is little cheer in these words of yours, Oleric the Red," he said. "And I do not know why you should call me brother, for whom you foretell a life of slavery. But these things are bridges to be crossed when met." He turned back to Rose Emer. "Have you such a thing as wine on this ship?" he asked. "This swoon is long in passing." Again the red captain regarded the broad back with satisfaction and smiled his craftful smile. He stepped to the end of the cabin, and from the cabinet there fetched a tall glass flagon, bound with golden filagree-work, and a slender, twisted goblet. The liquor which he poured from the flagon was cherry-red, and sent forth a pleasing aroma. "Here is of the best in Maeronica," he said. "Trust a captain of the fademes to know it." Lifting Rose's head on his arm, Polaris held the goblet to her lips and let the red wine trickle down. As he did so, the door of the cabin was opened from without. A man thrust his head through and shouted to Oleric in a strange though not unmusical tongue. The captain answered him a word or two, and the door was closed again. Polaris saw that the man wore armor of a pattern similar to that of Oleric, and that, like the captain's, his face was ruddy. But his hair was black, and he wore a short, curling beard. While the door was opened, the purr of smoothly running machinery could be heard, and with it a steady hissing, bubbling noise, like that of escaping steam. Rose sat up suddenly and glanced around her with frightened eyes. She threw her arms around Polaris's neck and clung to him. "You lay so still," she sobbed, "I thought that you were dead. But you are alive--alive!" Oleric bent forward and spoke hurriedly.