Through its mechanism the breath of its wearer hissed and whistled like escaping steam. Alive though the man was, and under circumstances which made his discoverers marvel, he was near death. Above and below the confines of the mask he wore, the bones of his face seemed almost thrusting through the flesh. The flesh itself was wasted and puckered by the action of the sea water, and the skin was cracked and raw. His hands, which clung so tenaciously to the bits of broken wood, were bleeding about the nails, and his wrists were gashed and water-eaten. "Now, here is work for Dr. Marsey," Polaris said. He gathered the limp form of the stranger into his arms and lifted him into the boat. At the rail of the _Minnetonka_ as the boat was shipped, a curious crowd met the advent of the man from the sea. Carrying him as lightly as though he had been a child, Polaris laid the man on the deck. The ship's doctor pushed through the wondering sailors and bent over him. "Not dead?" he exclaimed when he saw the stranger's face. "A most amazing thing!" "What resurrection from antiquity have we here?" said old Zenas Wright, falling on his knees beside Polaris, who was supporting the man's head. "No museum I ever saw boasted a suit of armor like this one." The scientist ran a finger over the delicate tracery on the glittering corselet of the stranger. Polaris sought and found the catch which released the chin strap and laid the open helmet on the deck. Another chorus of exclamations greeted the appearance of the stranger's head. It was covered with a mass of wavy red hair, so red that it shone like flames in the sunlight. Rumors of the wonder on deck had drawn the grizzled MacKechnie up from his beloved engines. "Mark me, yon laddie's a Scot--if he isna' of the wild Irish," was his dry comment when he saw the fiery head on the deck. Undoing its buckle, Janess next laid aside the odd mask from the face of the stranger. Except that he had a high, bold nose and a mouth that closed in a thin, firm line, little could be made of the features of the man, they were so damaged by his long immersion in the sea and impressed by the tightly drawn trappings of the mask. But he apparently was a young man, of not more than thirty years. In vain Dr. Marsey endeavored to force the man's clenched teeth apart so that he might apply the neck of the brandy flask which a steward had fetched. The jaw of the stranger was set like a rock and resisted all effort, and the doctor was compelled to pour the liquor between the locked teeth. "If that doesna' fetch him, nothing whatever will," said MacKechnie, the nostrils of his ruddy old nose twitching.