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Under thecare of Beatrice and the patriarch, Stern's convalescence was rapid The old man, consumed with terror lest the dreaded chief, Kaer should have wholly recovered, spent himself in efforts to hasten the cure And with deft skill he brewed his potions,medicines from minerals which only he--despite his blindness--kne to compound

The blow that had so shrewdly clipped Stern's skull hter-house, a ies and full vitality

Even Stern's wonderful physique had a hard fight to regain its finely ripened forces But day by day he gained--we -tith, upon the fifth, he was able for the first time to leave his seaweed bed and sit a while weakly on the patriarch's bench, with Beatrice beside him

Hand in hand they sat, while Stern asked , answered such as he saw fit But of Kairl yet breathed one syllable

Next day and the next, and so on every day, Stern was able to creep out of the hut, then walk a little, and finally--soo all aerly watch their labors of all kinds, try to talk with the words he was able to pick up, and learn rave and serious Folk they were, alious rites of any kind, and lacking festivals such as on the surface every barbarous people had always had

Their fisheries, net iron needles and coarse fiber-thread keenly interested hi of the flaer to hear this sound which had at first so sorely disconcerted hiold and copper supply; but their oil, he discovered, they collected in pits below the southern wall of the village, where it accumulated froe nuorous and with all sorts of possibilities when trained

Odd little, silent creatures the children were, white-faced and white-haired, playless and grave, laboring like their elders even froe of five or six They followed hi him soberly; but when he turned and tried to talk with thehtened rabbits and vanished in the always-open huts of stone