Wondering, he stared at the iridescent links of ilium and the dull red stones. Then the spring that held the tight-wound coil of memory snapped, and the past unrolled like an endless ribbon. He was weak. He had been ill. Yes, now he held the key--that conversation he had just heard. The "wild man" of whom the sailors talked was himself. He smiled. Already his yellow beard had grown long and ragged, and covered his throat. The knife, and the necklace--all of the talk had referred to him. And they said that in all his delirium he had spoken no word of English! He smiled to himself once more. So even when his conscious self had departed from control of his body and mind, he had held fast to his fanciful resolution. Rose Emer must also have kept her promise. Not a soul but herself guessed who he was. But that last part of the sailors' talk? What did that mean? What _were_ they going to do with him? In an instant he was alert and bitterly suspicious. He was on a ship, a ship at sea. He was in the power of the American captain, the man who had sought and probably found the great and mystic pole; also the man who was the affianced husband of the girl whom Polaris had carried across the snow deserts in his arms. Now he had a duty laid upon him, which he secretly guessed would conflict sorely with the wishes of the captain. While he lived, he would strive to carry out that duty. * * * * * But why had he lived? At the end of his terrible journey darkness had fallen upon him in the camp; why had it ever lifted? If it had not, he had been freed of his promise, and would have been content. What had happened since then? Where was Rose Emer? The gossip of the sailors had included no news of her; but so the inference was that all was well with her. Where was Marcus? How long had he been ill? These questions remained unanswered. He could not know that he had lain heavy and inert on a sledge for days, with only the thickness of their fur parkas separating him from Rose Emer, while Scoland's men, abandoning all that did not make for speed, had driven dogs to death in their wild dash back to the Felix. He could not know that he had been given up for dead by the men, and that, even then, that conclusion brought little of regret to the heart of the American commander. Nor could he know that Rose Emer would not have it so, and that, under her entreaties, the supposed corpse had been carried on to the ship, and to the good medical man on it, who found that somewhere in the fastnesses of the silent form stretched before him a tiny flicker of life still abode, and would respond to care. That care he had received, and in good measure. To Dr. Clawson he most certainly owed his life--twice over. Having saved it once, the integrity of the physician withstood the hint, almost brutally direct, from Scoland, that the man would be better off if he were let to die quietly.