Chapter IV: Battle on Latmos

At the opening of the passage into the cave the way was scarcely wide enough for two men to enter abreast. Farther in, where the entrance curved, it was narrower yet. There Minos elected to meet the attackers. He ordered the other men into the cave, whither Patrymion went sorely against his will.

"Art not going to take all the sport to thyself, king, I hope?" he asked. "I would make claim to a share in it."

"Thou shalt have it, and to spare, my lad," said Minos comfortingly. "No one of us will have complaint for lack of fighting while yonder red robe flameth in the valley."

As he spoke the king backed into the cave-passage and took position at the first turn, crouching low behind his shield. "Stand thou behind me here," he directed the boy, "and into thy keeping I commend any who may pass me." The king and the boy took their places.

The spearsmen of Analos, fully two hundred strong, poured over the little plateau on which the cave fronted. With a rush and yell they came, but found no foe to fight. Only the dark riff in the rock yawned silently before them. Strain their eyes as they might, they could not see what danger lay in wait for them within.

After a brief conference they decided to force the entrance, for Sardanians, when not arrayed against their own superstitions, were not cowards. Two by two, for the way was narrow, they crept into the passageway. Those foremost proceeded cautiously, and with their spear points well advanced.

In this warfare all the advantage lay with Minos. The besiegers could not see him, but from his position they were outlined against what light there was without the cave, and the king could see them well.

So it was that groping forward the spears of the first two of the attacking party clanged against something that was not rock. A flash in the dusk before them, a whine in the air, where the sword of Minos sang as it flew and two of the warriors of Analos were out of the fight forever.

Behind them their companions sprang to their feet and thrust desperately with their spears. So straight was the way that there was little room for spear play. Thrust and cast alike fell on the rocky wall or the shield of the king. Out of the darkness the strongest arm in all Sardanes swung unceasingly, dealing blows that none could see or parry.

The passage became hideous with cries and groans. Only Minos fought in grim silence. At his shoulder young Patrymion stood and laughed aloud at death unloosed.

Presently the king found his blows falling on empty air. Convinced that this method of battle was of small avail, the priest's men withdrew from the cave, dragging with them the fallen. They carried eight men down the steep sides of Latmos, to be sent to the Gateway, and five others were so sorely smitten by the blade that guarded the narrow way that they were little better than corpses.

"Now, let us out, master, and fall on them from behind," said Zalos. "One good charge may break their spirit."

Minos shook his head. "Nay, Zalos, we fight not save to defend ourselves. This slaughter of my people doth grieve me much. Would that 'twere at an end!"

"In verity, if thou grievest over long in thy present fashion, there will be none left in Sardanes to withstand thee," put in Patrymion. "At least let me go forth and hunt the high priest. With him dead, the rest are easily managed."

"Nay, he shall not be slain, and there's an end," said Minos sternly. "He hath coupled his mad talk to these strange manifestations in Sardanes, and so brought about all the trouble that is on foot. His death now will mend matters but little, for he hath done his damage among the people. When things right themselves once more (if, indeed, they ever do come aright), it is my will that he be living witness to his own confusion."

"Have they gone, or do they still watch, I wonder?" said Patrymion. He turned the passage and walked boldly to the entrance. Scarcely had he reached it when a spear whizzed by his ear and splintered on the rock wall. He picked the shattered weapon up with a laugh. "We are still watched," he said, as he bore it back into the cave.

Below in the hall of the Judgment House the stroke of the great drum echoed through the valley, giving notice of the passing of another day--a day fuller of events in Sardanes than any since Polaris of the Snows had fought his great fight on the crater-rim and struck out for the unknown North.

Through the sleeping hours a watchful hunter stood guard at the turn in the cave-passage, but no attempt was made to surprise the besieged. They ate from the store of grain in the cave and took what rest they could, undisturbed. With cloths from the king's chests the hunters curtained off a section of the cave for the Lady Memene, and thither she withdrew in silence, to sit with wakeful eyes through half the slumber hours.

On the morrow there was little rest for any. Within an hour of the first drum-stroke, the clamor of fighting men rang through the cave once more.

Again Minos took up the tale, but he found his foes more wary. Not again would they rush blindly the narrow way and the singing sword. They built a big wood fire at the edge of the plateau, in such a position that its flames cast their light into the passage. Six of their strongest warriors charged the cave-mouth. Four of them engaged the battling giant with their spears. The other two, on hands and knees, endeavored to creep under his guard, and got near enough to pull him down.

Straightway the Lord Patrymion went down on all fours, and with a spear in either hand fought between the knees of the king. As he fought, he taunted the attackers with mocking jests more bitter than the spear-thrusts. With his legs guarded, the strength of Minos was more than the strength of six. Of those who charged, only two reached the outer plateau alive.

* * * * *

In the respite the king turned and became aware of the Lady Memene. Shrouded in her long cloak, she stood against the wall of the passage, almost at his shoulder. She had watched the fighting with kindling eyes, but when Minos turned to look at her, she assumed again the mantle of indifference. Only behind the folds of her cloak one of her little feet was tapping, tapping on the rocky floor.

"Lady Memene, I pray thee, go within. Here is no place for thee," the king said. "A chance spear might pass this guard of mine, and then were all of Minos's fighting of no avail."

Wordless, she turned away and disappeared among the shadows.

Time after time the Sardanians, in stubborn fury, charged the cave-mouth. They fetched ladders from the valley, erected them against the cliff-face at the sides of the fissure, where the wall rose too sheer for a foothold otherwise. From the ladders, spearsmen leaped down, essaying to overwhelm the guardians of the pass and bear them down. But Minos drew back to where the closing roof of the entrance defended him from their attempts, and men who fell found the great sword and the keen spears of Patrymion and Zalos always waiting.

But one man, however brave and strong, cannot fight an army. Slowly, very slowly, the warriors of the priest tired that mighty sword-arm, although the dauntless spirit behind it flagged not. Again and again the rock passage was choked with dead and dying. Its floor ran red with blood. As often, the besiegers dragged the bodies of their comrades forth and renewed the struggle with fresh men. The champions of the god showed a fighting will even with that of Minos, laying on for his own head and his dear lady.

At last the king, sorely wearied, and wounded, although but slightly, in a score of places, yielded his place to Zalos and the Lord Patrymion. The lad took the shield of the king, and knelt with his spear at the turn of the passage. Behind him the stout captain plied a ponderous woodsman's ax with both hands, and the battle went on.

An unexpected circumstance ended the conflict. Several of the Sardanians on the cliffside with their long ladders discovered a ledge some forty feet above the opening into the cave and scrambled to it. On the ledge lay a number of large boulders, masses that had rolled down and rested there perhaps an age before.

With much labor and prying with spear-hafts, the men brought down several of the smaller rocks to the lip of the ledge. Poising one of them where, as nearly as they could judge, it would fall straight into the passage below, they waited for a lull in the fight. When they saw the pass clear of their fellows, they loosed the big stone with a shout.

Down it crashed, but, aimed too far to the left, missed the cleft and struck on the cliff-face with such force that a part of it flew to splinters. The main mass bounded through the air, struck again at the edge of the plateau, and thundered down the slope, carrying three of Analos's fighting men with it.

Unheeding the cries of their fellows from below to desist, the men on the ledge poised another boulder with better aim. It smashed into the rock corridor so near to the turn that the wind from it blew hard in the face of the Lord Patrymion, looking forth, and it struck the spear from his grasp and shattered it.

Up sprang the lad with a loud laugh.

"Now there's an end to this pleasant business of fighting," he said to Zalos, and pointed to the fallen rock. It lay wedged in the passage, jammed against the sides, and breast high, a natural barrier, stronger than the shield of Minos. One active man might hold the pass against any number, as long as he held strength to thrust, for room was left for but one man to pass over the rock at a time, and in no position for fighting.

Outside the plateau the Sardanians also had seen this new guardian in the narrow way, and reviled their fellows on the ledge for their lack of thought.

Nevertheless, they made one more attempt. They fetched up the slope a long and heavy timber of hymanan wood. Fixing an ilium-bar the thickness of two spear-hafts across the crevice, they slung the beam from it with a stout rope. Twenty men then seized the bar and swung the battering-ram against the boulder until they were weary. Every blow did but fix the rock firmer. All efforts to ram it in to where it might fall into the wider portion of the passage failed. They gave it up.

"Here we may stay now until we be old and gray-headed, Zalos," said Patrymion ruefully. "There can be no more fighting worth the telling. They cannot come at us. A puny girl could withstand them all here." He peered over the rock. "Aye, they know it, the rogues, and are going. 'Twill be but poor sport here." To himself he added: "I know a better, even though it lasteth but a few moments. What's the odds?"

Carried away by the love of fighting, a madness seemed to seize the lad. He let fall the shield of Minos, caught Zalos's ax from his hand, and before any man could hinder, he leaped over the rock.

"'Tis a pretty weapon," he called back over his shoulder to the hunter, and shook the ax aloft. "I will use it well." He ran out across the plateau singing loudly.

Unmindful of the danger, the hunter captain clambered over the rock to follow him. It was too late. For an instant Zalos saw the lad outlined clearly in the glare from the fire on the plateau, swinging the great ax with both hands. Then the spearsmen closed in on him from all sides. Four men he felled with four lightning strokes, and went down, dying as he had lived, with careless song on his lips, making a jest of death itself.

A storm of spears fell about the hunter as he emerged into the light, and he was fain to scramble back into the passage and over the rock to save his own skin.

Utterly exhausted, Minos, when he left the battle, had entered the cave and thrown himself on a couch to regain breath and strength for further combat. His hunters dressed his wounds and chafed his numbed sword-arm. First to reach him with water and bandages was Memene, but when she saw that his injuries were light and that he was merely tired, she gave way to the men and went back to her carved chair. But as she sat, one of her feet was ever tapping softly.

After a time came Zalos, and told his story to the king. Minos stood up and called for wine. When the beaker was fetched, he bowed low toward the rocky entrance, raising one hand in silent salute, and drank.

"To whom dost thou drink a toast, King Minos?" asked the girl, who noted all with curious eyes.

"To a brave man gone from among us," he replied gravely; "to a very brave man, to the Lord Patrymion."

* * * * *

Around the rocky headland, and into the cove swung the _Minnetonka_. The cove afforded the cruiser a safe harbor, storm-protected and free from ice. Down swung the boats from their davits, filled with eager men. For the first time shouting American sailors set foot on the shore where, more than two thousand years before, the little band of Achaeans had left the wreck of their ancient trireme, and pushed on into the unknown wilderness to find and people Sardanes.

Scoland, from the wireless room on the cruiser's deck, released the electric current that sent a splitting, chattering call out along the air-waves to the north. Nor was that call long unanswered.

Loaded with supplies and coal, the staunch old ship _Felix_, which Scoland had commanded on his previous polar dash, had left America before the _Minnetonka_. The faster cruiser had passed the _Felix_ on the sea-road, but she had toiled sturdily along, and was now in harbor at the upper end of Ross Sea to wait what might befall; the _Felix_ and her wireless constituted the one link that joined the Sardanian relief expedition to the outer world.

In the second boat to the shore went Polaris Janess and his dogs. The son of the snows was moccasined and furred, and ready to try conclusions with the worst that the white wildernesses had to put forth against him, the wildernesses that once had been his home. He wore the garments of white bearskin that had kept the warmth in his body in his great dash to the north.

His hair of red-gold had now grown long and hung again to his shoulders. Except that time and the perils through which he had passed had marked his face a thought more grave, he was the same indomitable young man who once had fought his way across the drift-ice in this selfsame cove, when the fiends from the sea deeps, the killer whales, had striven in vain to make a meal of him, and his Rose maid had stood on the snowy shore and called encouragement to him in his fight.

Beside Polaris in the boat was seated the short, wide figure of Zenas Wright. His white hair shone from under a shapeless cap of lynx fur from the Hudson Bay country. He was buttoned to the ears in a suit of mackinaw wool with a furred parka. Like the young man, he had a pair of snowshoes slung at his back. He, too, was determined to tread the white pathway to Sardanes.

Polaris had done his best to dissuade the aged scientist from the attempt, and Scoland had added his plea. The determination of the old man to go with Polaris had seemed a particular annoyance to the captain. Zenas Wright would listen to neither argument nor entreaty.

"In my time I've put my name on one or two spots on the map," he said, "but I would rather have it erased than to miss my share in this expedition. I'm going to see this Sardanes of yours, my son, if I have to leave my old bones there. I was responsible for your coming down here. Now I'm going in with you. You are not going to take all the risks alone. Don't try to stop me. My mind's made up, and I'm obstinate as a Tennessee mule."

Ashore with them went the ship's carpenters with tools and lumber to establish a winter camp. A number of shacks were knocked together. More sledges and dogs were taken ashore. Within a couple of days a small but noisy settlement had sprung up on the bay shore. Men and beasts, confined for many weary weeks to the cramped quarters aboard the cruiser, were glad, indeed, to have the chance to be ashore and move about freely, bleak as the place was. Shouts and barks arose joyously where for untold centuries few voices had been heard except those of many-tongued Nature herself.

Sure that his wireless connections with the _Felix_ were in working order, and that the crew of the supply ship had chosen a safe harbor, where he could find them, Captain Scoland also went ashore, and threw himself energetically into the details of camp making.

Never a talkative man, the tall captain had grown, in the latter days of their voyaging, more taciturn than ever. Morose and moody, for hours at a time he never opened his lips except for the giving of orders, and they were more sharp and stern than even was his wont. His associates had been quick to notice those things, but laid them to the cares and dangers of their enterprise. In one thing the captain was not lacking. That was a great capacity for work. Scarcely a detail of the work on board the cruiser or ashore went forward without his personal supervision.

Seeing that the heart of Zenas Wright was firm set on making the trip inland to Sardanes, Polaris, with inward impatience, was forced to delay the immediate start he had premeditated. Once started, the going would be swift as they were capable of, and it would be a cruelty to expect the older man, unused for years to snow travel, to keep up the pace on snowshoes.

While others of the party were busy with the camp building, Polaris and the scientist spent hours on the snow slopes, and made a number of short trips over the ridge to the east. As the young man had foreseen, Wright's first experience with the shoes nearly crippled him. In the course of a couple of days, however, his joints and muscles were limbered to the labor, and he was able to make surprising progress, proving his boast that he was an adept snow runner.

Scoland, whom previous years in both Arctic and Antarctic regions had made expert in the management of dogs, selected himself a team from the huskies, and took a sudden interest in snow journeying, an activity that nearly cost the expedition dearly.

* * * * *

On the second day after their arrival at the cove, a man came ashore from the _Minnetonka_ with a message for the captain from Aronson on the _Felix_. The message bearer failed to find Scoland at the shacks. When Polaris and Zenas Wright came in later, at the end of their day's exercise, the captain was still missing. They had not seen him. Dogs and sledge which the captain had been using were missing also.

"Either he is strayed and lost in the snow, or some manner of mishap has befallen," said Polaris. "I will go and find him."

Turning his own beasts, he set out at once to study the tangle of snow trails that led inland from the camp. There had been no snow and little wind for a number of days, so it was an easy matter for him to read the paths. Starting from the ridge at the back of the cove, he swung out in a long loop, whose farther curve took him five miles or more from the camp. Four trails he crossed that were plainly back-trailed. The fifth snow path that he came to led on into the wilderness, with no evidence of a return, and he followed that.

Along the foothill slopes of the icy barrier mountains the land lay comparatively level, except for the rocky hummocks that were everywhere sprinkled. A few miles to the south of the range, low rolling hills began again, extending as far as eye might see. Into the hills Scoland's trail lay. Some six miles from where Polaris first picked up the path, he found the captain.

Where a deep and jagged crevasse yawned beneath its treacherous coverlet of snow crust, the trail ended. Where the crust had broken under their weight, men and dogs and sledge had disappeared into the depths.

Outspanning and tethering his own team to a rock, the son of the snows crept forward cautiously to the brink of the chasm.

Scarcely a yard below the level of the broken snow bridge, Scoland's sledge was caught fast between two projecting teeth of rock and hung over the crevasse. Head downward in their harness, and frozen stiff and dead, dangled the carcasses of two of the captain's huskies. Below them the forward harness hung in strips. Peering into the lower deep of the crevasse, as his eyes became accustomed to its gloom, Polaris could make out the mass of fallen snow from the bridge. It lay forty feet below him, on the floor of the crevasse, which extended away to either side in an irregular corridor, rock-walled and carpeted with snow. Of the man and the other dogs he could see nothing.

He shouted, and his heart leaped gladly, when, faint and weak and far-away, came an answering halloo, followed immediately by the howling of dogs. Scoland lived!

Lengths of thin, stout rope were part of the equipment of every sledge, and with each a small steel pulley for hauling. Polaris sprang to his sledge and fetched his tackle.

Testing every inch of the rock with his utmost strength, he crept over the lip of the crevasse, whipped a short bight of rope about one of the rocks that held the wreck of Scoland's sledge, swung his pulley and threaded it. Of rope he had nearly a hundred feet, so that, doubled, it reached the floor of the crevasse, and to spare. He did his work in haste.

Within five minutes of the time of Scoland's answering hail from the depths, Polaris went down the doubled rope hand under hand, and set foot on the crevasse bottom. He shouted again, and again received a faint answer, away to the south in the windings of the crooked corridor. He started that way, and had gone but a few steps when, whimpering and howling, two of the captain's dogs came floundering through the snow to meet him.

When Scoland broke through the crust he had been running with the dogs ahead of his sledge. He had pitched downward with the mass of falling snow, and landed, badly shaken but uninjured, on the floor of the crevasse. He saw at once that it would be impossible at the point where he fell to scale the height of the crevasse wall. The corridor-like fissure, extending south, took an upward course. The captain followed its windings in that direction, hoping that it would lead again to the surface.

Another mishap had made his case almost hopeless. A break in the rocky floor, masked by snow, yawned across the entire width of the chasm. In the half darkness, Scoland had reached its edge. Too late he felt the snow slipping from beneath his feet, and fell again. He had found himself in a pocket some eight feet deep, its sides so sheer that he could not climb them. Vainly he explored every inch of the walls at either side, and tore at the rocks until his hands bled, in an effort to gain a hold. His struggles only brought exhaustion. Three of his huskies had taken the leap, the other two remaining in the upper corridor.

Utterly worn out, the captain at length had curled himself up with the beasts. The warmth of their bodies alone had held the life in his body, for the cold was deadly. Dogs and man were waiting for slow death when they heard the hail of Polaris.

Flat on his stomach, Polaris crawled to the edge of the break in the floor. Cramped and chilled, Scoland was barely able to stand and stagger to the wall. Polaris reached down and found that he could grasp Scoland's upstretched arms between wrists and elbows. Turning on his back, the son of the snows exerted his mighty sinews. Scoland hung almost a dead weight, but he raised him. Up, up, slowly, carefully, and then over the edge, and the captain lay gasping beside him.

On his face again, Polaris called encouragement to the huskies. Barking loudly, the dogs sprang high, leaping repeatedly at the face of the wall. One by one, the man caught them in the air as they leaped, and raised them to the upper floor.

Half carrying the exhausted Scoland, Polaris hurried along the passage to the ropes, and made him fast. Fearing that the captain was too weak to effect his own release from the tackle, Janess climbed the rope to the lip of the chasm. Again he exerted his tireless strength and hauled the other to the surface.

Scoland rolled weakly into the snow.

"Brandy," he muttered; "there's a flask in the back of the sledge. Can you reach it?"

Polaris found and fetched the flask. Scoland took a long pull at the fiery spirit. Seeing Janess about to lower himself over the rock again, he asked:

"What are you going to do?"

"Fetch up the dogs," Polaris answered.

"Let the damned brutes go, and get me back to the camp. I'm nearly all in."

Polaris eyed him narrowly.

"Not so," he said shortly. "They are good dogs. Were it not for three of them I think you would not now be living." He slipped down the side of the crevasse.

Scoland sneered. He lay watching the straining rope. It seemed to fascinate him. His hand crept to the knife at his belt. Slowly he drew it, and laid its keen blade against the rope. A wave of weakness came over him. Alone, he could never reach the camp. He put away the knife.

One by one Polaris brought up the huskies. He placed Scoland on his own sledge and drove back to the camp, leaving the wreck to be recovered later.

Not one word of thanks did Scoland speak to him for his deliverance. All the way back to the camp the captain lay on the sledge with closed eyes. All the way he cursed furiously within himself that it should be his fortune to take his life at the hands of this one man of all men.

* * * * *

No more was battle done on the steep slope of Mount Latmos. Assured that Minos and his men were holed in where they might not come at them, the fighting men of the priest went up against the cave no more. Although they must have known that the treasure cave was provisioned and watered so abundantly that it would keep its small garrison for many months, they did not give up their siege entirely. That was discovered when one of the hunters thought to go forth by stealth in the slumber hours, and pay a visit to his wife and children at his home in the valley. Hardly was he over the ledge of the plateau when men seized him in the dusk.

His comrades in the cave above heard him scream out once and twice, and then the minions of Analos cut his throat.

On their part, the hunters maintained a guard of one man at all hours, who sat behind the boulder in the passageway.

Late in the fourth day that they had been immured in the mountainside, Dukulon, one of Zalos's men, as he stood his turn at guard, heard a rapping at the mouth of the pass as one who tapped gently on the wall with a stone.

"Who cometh?" he hailed.

"_Sh_--it is I, Alternes," came the whispered answer. "I would have speech with Minos the King."

Minos came and bade the lad enter the cave. He wriggled slowly, and with not a few groans, through the passage, and was helped over the rock. When they took him to the light, they found that he was in evil case. Most of his clothing had been torn from him, and he was bruised and with dried blood on his flesh.

"They have hunted me in the hills like a goat," he gasped, as he bent to kiss the hand of his master. "Thy palace is a dismal ruin, O king. Thy servants are scattered or slain. The stone with thy name on it has been cast down from above thy seat in the Judgment House. Even thy throne they toppled from its place and shattered."

The king turned from him sorrowfully. The hunters gathered round, and, as they tended the hurts of the lad, they sought news from him of their families.

"I can tell you naught," he said wearily, "but I believe that every soul in the valley that stood faithful to the king hath been sent to Hephaistos. The dead lie unburned in rows on the upper terraces of the Gateway. For in the hill the fires of the god do wax so mighty that none, not even his own priests, dares to come near to them. All upper Sardanes is snow and ice. Ten of the great moons have gone dark, and as they die the cold cometh on apace."

Then Alternes turned his face to the wall on the couch of skins where they had laid him, and slept long and well.

One more attempt Analos made to bring Minos to his will. The priest sent a delegation of all the lords of the valley to the cave-mouth. Minos came and talked with them over the fallen rock. To his side came the Lady Memene and leaned upon the stone, her chin upon her hands.

Ukalles, now an outcast from his home on Tanos in upper Sardanes, was spokesman for the nobles.

"We are sore beset of troubles, O Minos!" he cried. "The priest saith the land is doomed to the anger of the Lord Hephaistos, and day by day the doom marcheth. Thou dost stand against it and lure it on the people and on all of us, saith Analos. Wilt not yield to the god, and not let this fair valley perish, that hath stood for ages? Consider, for the people's sake--the people whom once thou didst love so well, and who love thee. It is promised thee that thou shalt not die if thou dost yield. Thou must, indeed, go to the Gateway and submit to what decree of punishment the god maketh, but not to death. Come, ere that we hold dear be gone, and Sardanes be blotted out."

"Strange is the love the people bear their king," answered Minos calmly. "Strange, indeed, when they have slain my servants, laid my palace in ruins, and stricken my very name from the seat of my fathers--"

"But that was by orders of the god through his priests," broke in Ukalles.

"Right well I know that so ye are deluded to believe," replied the king. "Yet were those orders from the priests carried out by hands and hearts of those who once were my people. Minos hath no people more, save these few faithful ones who abide with him, risking all.

"Now list thee, Ukalles and all of those with thee, for this is the last word of Minos. Once, before he did send his spearsmen against me, I did tell this Analos that, were Minos convinced for one little moment that by any sacrifice, however great, he could avert that which falleth on the valley, that sacrifice he would make, and hesitate not. Of such is Minos not convinced. Not of the god are the rumblings of the hills, the dying fires and the coming of the snows."

"Thou blasphemest," Ukalles shouted in anger, "and in thy madness dost bring doom on us all. My curse and that of all these, and of the people, the priests and the great Hephaistos, lieth on thee, if thou dost not yield thee to his grace."

"Curse on, thou fool," was Minos's answer. "I mind thy curses as little as the wind that bloweth. If this god of thine be great and powerful, as thou sayest, and as the priests do preach, how is it that he doth allow me, one man alone, to stand in his divine path? Why hath he not come hither and plucked me from my place and bent or broken me to his will?"

Minos raised his hand on high with the great sword shining in it.

"I, Minos, king in Sardanes until the end, do defy this Hephaistos. Hath he need of such as thou and Analos to do his will for him, he is no cause for fear. Away, ye superstition-ridden dullards, and run your mad pace through. Minos yieldeth not. He defieth all of you. Your god cometh not, nor will come, because--_there is no god!_"

Shaking and trembling in the fears aroused by the king's defiance, the nobles turned to go. Only Karnaon stood out from among them.

"Memene, my daughter, leave thou this madman and come to me," he called. "Come, girl. Thy father commandeth thee."

"And I, my father, do disobey thee," said the girl.

"Then take thou thy father's bitter curse," Karnaon shouted. He stamped his foot in his anger.

"That thou didst give me once, O father, when thou didst send me to the Gateway to marry the foul priest," answered Memene. "That is neither forgotten nor forgiven thee."

"Thou art no more daughter of mine," Karnaon said between his set teeth. Then he, too, turned away and followed the others down the steep hill, walking heavily.

Slowly the nobles crossed the valley and the river and took their tidings to Analos at the Gateway.

At the top of the pathway to the first terrace, the high priest met them, escorted by the black-robed company that served the mighty altar of Hephaistos. When he saw that they brought no royal captives with them, and heard the tale of the defiance Minos had hurled at the ancient god, his anger rose and choked him so that he answered them nothing. He stood and heard them through, his hands clenched under his robe so that the nails of his fingers bit into his palms.

For a time he stood so. Then he rent his black robe from him, tearing it to shreds, and in his red paraphernalia of death ran up the terraces like a flame. In a room in his own house on the upper terrace he threw himself on the marble floor and writhed and rolled and tore at his black beard, gone clean mad with impotent rage. When one of his priests came to consult him, he leaped in frenzy, and slew the man with one stroke of a stone vase, then hid the body and went forth, somewhat calmed.

As he passed his threshold, a roaring smote upon his ears. From the lofty arched portal built against the side of the cliff gushed a tide of molten lava as wide as the river Ukranis. The fire-lake had risen until it overflowed the ledge and poured down through the spiral passage that led from the temple of death to the upper terrace.

Out from the carved portal flowed the fiery torrent, hissing and snapping. Right in its path lay the rows of dead Sardanians, awaiting the rites of Hephaistos, their quiet faces upturned and ghastly in the baleful radiance reflected down on them from the flaming hill-crown. One moment they lay there in their still lines, and then the seething flood passed over them and licked them up.

On it poured, and crept over the brink of the terrace, and down in a fearful cascade, setting fire to the forest on the side of the holy hill. The force of the torrent soon abated, and the lava lay as though some terrible serpent had crept forth from the deeps of the earth and stretched itself adown the terraces. For hours it glowed before it cooled into dross and ashes. The fire in the forest spread, until half the mountain was aflame, and the lower end of the valley presented a spectacle of unearthly splendor.

That flood of lava was a spurt of the very heart's blood of the valley. Even as it jetted from the side of the Gateway, halfway up the valley's rim three more of its volcanic guardians gave up their fiery ghosts, and the cold grip of the Antarctic took hold of their gaping throats.

Undaunted by the fury that raged on the Gateway to the Future, Analos would not desert his post on the upper terrace. All of the other priests he drove from him, bidding them abide below with the stricken people until such time as he should summon them to him again. He stayed alone with his god.

More days of terror passed. The red priest from the flaming hill and Minos the king from his lair on Mount Latmos watched the march of winter down the valley.