THE CURSE OF ANALOS
On the brink of the ledge of death in the crater of the Gateway to the
Future crouched Analos, high priest in Sardanes. Two hundred feet below
him in the monstrous funnel of the crater, seethed the lake of undying
fires. Billowing vapors wafted from that troubled caldron passed upward
beyond him, an endless procession of many-hued wraiths. First mist,
smoke and sulfurous gases intermingled, spiraled and coiled in the
drafts that blew through the mountain's cone, and passed on to the vent
of the enormous flue, three hundred feet above.
The rumble and muttering of the raging flames smote his ears
continually. Beneath his feet the solid rock of the hollow hill
vibrated and trembled. Anon as the wreaths and curtains of vapor
shifted and curled, disclosing their furious source, the weird light
shone garishly on his red vestments of office. His high-templed, crafty
face, above its black beard, turned livid in the glare.
It was evident from the tense bearing of the man that he was himself
in the grip of an inward fire that threatened to break forth with
consuming fury. He ground his teeth, and blood ran from his bitten lips
into his beard.
"Curse them, O Lord Hephaistos! Curse them, for thy sake and for thy
servant's!" he prayed as he prayed many times before. He stretched his
arms out over the gasping pit, raised himself on one knee and sent his
voice wailing out across the fire-shot depths.
"Aye, curse them and spare them not! Curse him that was before me here!
May Kalin be accursed! Curse him who now opposeth my will! May Minos be
accursed! Curse her who hath flouted me, thy priest! May she be thrice
accursed! Curse them all, and for all the years to come! May they know
no rest in Sardanes or in the world! May they find no peace in that far
place beyond, whither thy gateway leadeth!"
Panting for breath, he paused. His writhing features were hideous in
the flare from the chasm. Again he tossed his arms wildly.
"Come to my aid, Hephaistos!" he screamed. "Aid thou thy servant! Give
me a sign, that I may know. A sign, Master, send me a sign!"
Booming up from the depths, his answer came--a mighty diapason from
the throat of the crater that seemed to carry with it every chord of
nature's tonal gamut. As if the hammer of Hephaistos, indeed, had
smitten, the solid rock beneath him quivered to a terrific shock from
the bowels of the earth.
Almost jarred from his foothold, the man, by a quick spring backward,
saved himself from toppling into the fiery funnel. Crawling on hands
and knees, he approached the brink of the ledge again, and there lay
flat. His eyeballs bulged and his senses swam when he gazed downward.
He saw the fire-fretted sides of the giant crater swept free of all
their clouding vapors, every glittering vein, every projection, every
detail of their many strata, revealed in startling clearness by a
blinding flood of light. He saw the fire-lake itself surge upward in
its white-hot sheath. Up, up the sheer declivity of the crater it
crept. As it came, for yards above it the rocks glowed red.
Another tremendous shock swayed the ledge where the priest lay. Masses
of rock, reft from the precipitous walls near the mountain summit,
hurtled past him down the chasm. Again the molten lava heaved up a
great wave. Never in all the traditions of Sardanes had the fires of
the Gateway leaped so far! From the center of that swirling maelstrom
there arose a cone twenty feet high. It opened with a shriek as of a
legion of devils released, and an appalling pillar of blue flame shot
up from it and stood like a plume.
Although the highest reach of the flame was a full hundred feet below
him, the blast of the heat was like to burst the veins of the watching
priest. His very beard curled in it. Springing to his feet, Analos went
back to the darkness of the passage that led to the terraces on the
lower slope. Already it was hot to suffocation in the winding corridor.
Down the spirals ahead of him Analos heard the squealing of his
affrighted priests as they scurried for the open. But Analos quaked
not. He strode forth from the lofty arch of the portal and trod the
upper terrace with the step of a master conqueror. He glanced up the
outer acclivity of the mountain. He saw its peak ablaze with a crown
of fire against the gloom of the Antarctic night--a crown which shone
there for the first time since man had made history in the valley of
Sardanes. He drew a deep breath, a breath of triumph and exaltation.
"Master, thy sign is sent!" he cried.
With head held high, Analos passed down the fire-lighted terraces.
As he went, he heard through the red twilight of the valley cries of
wonder and heart-rending wails of fear.
* * * * *
Afar on the Hunter's Road, twenty miles to the north and west of the
valley, Minos the king and eight of his hunters followed the trail
of the white bear. Two sledges they had with them, each hauled by
six-horse teams of the sturdy little Sardanian ponies. But Minos
coursed the snows more swiftly by far with a lighter sledge, whisked
over the frozen crusts by a racing chain of beasts that could outstrip
the small horses by two miles to one. _Seven great gray dogs drew the
sledge of Minos!_
Now, a strange thing must be related. When Polaris fought his way out
of Sardanes, along the crater ledge and through the rift in the wall of
the Gateway to the Future, his team of splendid dogs battled with him.
Their fighting fangs aided him fully as much as did his long, brown
rifle and brace of revolvers in holding Minos and his men back until it
was time to pass the rift and join Kalin the priest and the Rose maid.
One of his fiercest charges was made to avenge the dog Pallas, when she
was struck down by an ilium spear, and pitched over the brink of the
ledge.
Although her master gave her up for lost, Pallas did not die. When
Minos the king made his way back to the valley after his last struggle
with the outlander, men came and told him that the beast lay sore
wounded and moaning on a rock-ledge in the side of the crater pit, some
score of feet below that from which she had fallen. They would have
stoned her to death, or let torches fall to drive her into the fire
lake, but Minos would not suffer it. The king himself ordered that he
be let down the crater wall with ropes. There he bound and muzzled
Pallas and brought her to the upper ledge and to his palace, and tended
her hurts, for Minos was skilled in the rude surgery of the valley.
Analos, who succeeded Kalin as high priest in Sardanes, later demanded
the brute to be a sacrifice to Hephaistos, but Minos withstood him and
his priests, and the dog lived on.
Some six weeks after her rescue from the pit, Pallas whined her mother
joy over six blind puppies. Twice the great darkness had fallen on the
Southland since the man of the snows had left it, and the pups had
grown tall and strong. Minos had given them much care, and it was his
whim to train them and use them as had Polaris. Now, with Pallas as the
leader, they drew the king's sledge.
Sardanians, who had never known dogs until the advent of the strangers,
eyed them askance, but the will of Minos was an ill thing to tamper
with.
The chase was fruitful. When the king and his hunters broke camp and
turned homeward, where the red haze of the moons of Sardanes lighted
the southern horizon, the carcasses of two monarchs of the wastes were
lashed to their sledges in token of the huntsmen's prowess.
Three miles from the north pass into the valley they stopped to rest
and to feed their beasts. Minos was busied straightening out a kink in
a harness strap, when he heard a shout of amazement. A flash of light
shone with startling brightness across the wilderness of rocks and ice
hummocks and snow.
The king sprang to his feet and saw a mighty, flaming pillar spread
fanwise heavenward from the summit of the looming bulk of the mountain
that lay to the left, at the northeast sweep of the oval range that
encompassed Sardanes.
Gloomy and silent always through the centuries since their ancestors
had found the valley, now the towering peak of the Gateway to the
Future blazed with a fury that dimmed the moons of all its sister
mountains. That sight smote the Sardanians with terror. With upraised
arms, they stood among their snorting beasts, their staring, affrighted
faces ghastly in the flare.
Beneath their feet they felt the rock-strewn bosom of the plain heave
gently, and, after a short space, again. They moaned in terror.
Of a mold to be daunted little by natural or supernatural, Minos the
king was less moved than the others. While they groaned and called on
Hephaistos, he strode among them with a quieting word.
"Old Mother Nature played a trick for her amusement," he said. "She
hath lighted Sardanes brighter than ever before, and now she melteth
the snows of the wilderness. Look! Never saw I such a mist!"
He pointed to the east. Extending from the foothills below the Gateway,
northeast, as far as their eyes might see, a rolling bank of fog hung
over the snow-lands.
"Bring in the sledges as soon as may be," Minos ordered. "There will be
many a shaken heart in Sardanes at yonder sight. I will hasten on."
He leaped on his own sledge, gave the word to his dogs, and in a moment
the swift snow-runners had carried him around a bend in the pathway
toward the valley. As he went, he heard the dull booming of the huge
drum that hung in the hall of the Judgment House, whereon some lusty
wight was making play with all the strength of his two arms.
So it happened that, as Analos crossed the green stone bridge over the
river, the king entered the valley through the north pass, both of them
bound in haste for the Judgment House.
As was his custom, Minos left his sledge in a rock-built shelter at the
base of the pass cliffs, where the snows broke into bare ground and
rock. With his gray beasts in leash, he hurried through the pass and
set off across the valley at a loping, light-footed gait. Skirting the
marshes, where the river lost itself in its subterranean channels at
the lower end of the valley, the king and his shaggy companions crossed
the bridge and took a path above the main road that led them over the
slopes through groves of gigantic hymanan trees.
The yellow-bronze and rustling foliage of the forest monarchs reflected
the radiance of the mountain moons in a shimmer of whispering gold.
Among their gnarled trunks the shadows lay thick. He was still ten
minutes' journey from the Judgment House when the gleam of a white robe
in the dusk and a subdued growl from the dogs told the king that some
one loitered in the path ahead of him. He heard a woman's voice raised
in anger, a voice that thrilled him to his heart's core.
Silencing the muttering beasts, he went forward cautiously.
A black-haired girl stood with her back to the bole of a tree, against
which her white arms were thrown out at each side. Her head was tilted
defiantly. Her bosom heaved and her black eyes snapped. In front of her
the dark form of a man barred her way. He was draped in a long robe,
the cowl of which obscured his features.
"How darest thou!" Her tones bit scornfully. "How darest thou lay a
hand on the daughter of the Lord Karnaon? I care not for thy threats
of powers. I tell thee that wert thou twice what thou art, to me thou
wouldst be all that is foul and abhorrent. Mate with thee!" She laughed
shortly. "I'd sooner mate with the meanest of my father's servants than
with thee."
Analos, for he it was whom opportunity had tempted thus to tarry, shook
his clenched fists over the head of the girl. Brave as she was, his
face turned so hideous in its leering rage that she shrank.
"Twice hast thou flouted me, girl," he said in a choked, hard voice,
"me, the minister and mouthpiece of the Lord Hephaistos. It shall not
be so again." He tossed an arm toward the flaming crown of the mountain
whence he had come. "Yonder the god ruleth in all his splendor, and
I am his faithful servant. To the Gateway shalt thou come, whether
thou willst or no. Thither shouldst thou go this moment had I not more
pressing business elsewhere."
A strong and open hand smote the words from the priest's lips. In an
instant he was gurgling on the ground, his neck beneath the heel of
Minos, and the dogs were sniffing about him, anxious to lay hold.
"The Lady Memene may go her ways in peace," said the king quietly,
bowing low.
No word of thanks got Minos for his timely coming. The girl flashed him
one quick look, and then passed by him hastily with head up. He gazed
after her, ruefully.
"It seems that I am no more welcome than thou," he said, and dragged
Analos to his feet. "What doings are these, priest, and what passeth
yonder in the Gateway that doth so affright Sardanes? Answer, thou!" He
shook the burly priest like a refractory child.
However wicked in spirit, Analos lacked not in bravery. He snatched
an ilium dagger from his girdle and struck fiercely at Minos's chest.
The big man saw the flash of the weapon, but made no parrying move.
Instead, he shoved the priest from him with one powerful arm, and so
violently that Analos spun many feet and brought up against the trunk
of another tree.
Minos called the dogs back, which would have followed eagerly.
"Wouldst thou, Analos, indeed?" said the king with a laugh. "The time
cometh, I can see it plainly, priest, when thou and I must try a fall
for place in the kingdom. Thou growest insolent. At least there be two
in Sardanes who fear thee not." He laughed again. "Now, an thou hast
naught to say, begone on that most pressing business of thine, and
cross not my path again in such pursuits as I found thee but now, lest
I be tempted to waste a spear on thy dirty carcass."
Twice the priest essayed to answer, but each time his words were
choked. Then there burst from his throat an inarticulate bellow of
rage. He turned and dashed madly away into the shadows, his black robe
flying out behind him.
"He groweth troublesome, as did Kalin, who opposed Helicon, my
brother," mused Minos; "but he hath not Kalin's mettle. For myself, I
did like the man Kalin passing well."
Another burst from the great drum recalled his errand to the king, and
he hastened on.
* * * * *
For more than an hour had Gallando the smith smitten the drum that
hung in the pillared hall of the Judgment House until he was aweary.
Far through the valley and over the hills had its thunderous summons
rolled, calling to all Sardanes.
Those who labored had ceased, and those who slept had wakened. They
had come until nearly two-thirds of the inhabitants of the valley were
gathered. Those abroad when the first spurt of flame had leaped from
the peak of the Gateway and the earth had quaked had let everything
fall and hastened in. Those indoors had followed soon. From the open
façade of the hall more than a thousand white faces were turned toward
the flaming hill. From the upper reaches of the valley, nearly a score
of miles away, others were coming with other tales to tell. Black fear
sat heavy upon the shoulders of all.
"Where is Minos the king?" "Analos? Is he here?" "Doth Hephaistos
smite his people?" These and many other cries rang in the hall. One
stupendous liar swore that he had seen the shape of the god himself
outlined in fire on the crest of the Gateway--and many believed his
tale.
Women, their high-plaited hair disheveled, tunics all awry, clung to
their husbands. Bewildered children added their shrieks to the din and
confusion. Never had Sardanes been so shaken.
Not until the somber figure of Analos was seen ascending the marble
steps of the dais at the upper end of the hall was the clamor quieted.
The priest crossed the platform and sat himself on the black stone seat
of his predecessors. He stared gloomily out over the sputtering of the
torches in their cressets about the hall, an occasional sob or murmur
of a frightened child, the singing of the river, and the far-away
roaring of the hills.
Some minutes passed, and from the door at the rear of the dais came
Minos. His dogs trooped in with him, bristling at sight of the
priest. The king took his seat on the ancient, raised throne of his
forefathers, with its plinth above, whereon were carved the words
MINOEBAEIVEYETHEEAPAANHEOH
(Minos, Basileustes Sardanes Ho Hekaton, or Minos, hundredth King of
Sardanes.)
A number of the nobles climbed up the steps from the lower hall, and
took their stations below the throne.
Scarcely was the king in his place when the tumult of affright again
broke forth, an unintelligible clamor of many voices. Minos raised his
hands to still it. He addressed his people calmly, with the demeanor
and smile that long before had earned for him the name of the Smiling
Prince.
"Tradition saith, and the writings of history which the priest keep
do confirm," he said, "that in time very long ago our ancestors came
to Sardanes from a great, bright world to the north, a world wherein
they were part of a mighty people. By a strange mischance came they to
Sardanes, and might return no more whence they came. Here have their
descendants lived in peace and plenty. But a little time agone two
strangers, that Polaris--of the Snows, and the Rose girl, came among
us. They, too, told us of the outer world--a place so different from
this that we scarce could conceive of it. There the sun shineth always.
Here he is hid from us for half of each year. There all things live in
his warmth. Here are we warmed by the ring of fire-mountains, and all
without is the bleak desert of ice and snow.
"They told us also, did the strangers, of the nature of the fires which
spout yonder, and of the mighty forces in the earth from which they are
sprung. Wherefore tremble ye now, my people? Because a hill shaketh?
Because a fire flameth anew that perhaps flamed aforetime, long before
your forefathers came? Fear not. These things be of nature, and of
nature only, and will pass. I, Minos, your king, am sure that no great
harm impendeth, and that all things will be again as they have been."
Reassuring as were his words and his calmness, murmurs broke out anew
from the people.
"Never hath it been so chill in the time of the great darkness as now
it is," cried a voice.
"Hephaistos! Hephaistos! These things must be of the great god, who is
sore wroth with Sardanes. The priests have said it," called another.
Above the many-tongued murmur swelled the name of the high priest.
"Analos! Analos! Let us hear from the wise priest of the Gateway!" they
shouted.
With a smile of grim defiance at the king, Analos glided from his seat
and stood at the edge of the platform. He drew his long, black cloak
around him, and stood poised like a bird of dark omen, wrapped in its
sable pinions. His somber eyes glowed.
Good actor was the priest. He spoke never a word until the silence of
death in the hall told him that he had the attention of every straining
ear.
"Angered is the great Hephaistos," he began slowly, in hollow tones.
"And hath he not borne much? Is it a little thing that the kings of
Sardanes lead the people from their god? Aye, and that one of his own
chief ministers hath turned false? Now the god turneth his face from
the valley. Punishment falleth apace. Already hath the doom of Kalin,
the traitor priest, struck. It was revealed to me in a vision that he
and the outlanders perished in torture in the wilderness--but first
Hephaistos used the man of the snows as an instrument of vengeance
against those in high places who turned against their master.
"Remember ye the deaths of Helicon, the king, of Morolas, his brother,
and of many others? Take warning and tremble, ye of Sardanes! A greater
vengeance is at hand--"
He was interrupted by the clatter of flying hoofs on the roadway
down the valley from the south, and the rumbling of a two-wheeled
chariot. Four ponies driven at furious speed drew the chariot. Down
the long roadway they dashed, and brought up with clashing hoofs on
the stones of the paved court without the hall. Their driver, a tall,
black-bearded man, sprang from his car and pushed through the press in
the hall, tossing his arms wildly.
"From the mansion of the Lord Ukalles in upper Sardanes am I come!" he
screamed as he reached the steps to the dais. "And this my message:
Quenched in darkness are the moons of Mount Helior and Mount Tanos,
and there is ice to the thickness of a man's hand on the holy river
Ukranis, where never was ice before!"
Like standing grain in a chill wind the people quivered, as a thrill of
abject terror ran through them--a despairing murmur.
Joy that was demoniac lighted the countenance of the priest. He leaned
far out from the verge of the dais and spread his arms with fingers
hooked and clutching at the air.
His voice broke in on the echo of the courier's dire message.
"Woe to fair Sardanes!" he howled. "Hephaistos smiteth and spareth not.
For the sins of the few shall the many be smitten. Woe to Sardanes!
I have read it in the Gateway that the doom shall fall until the
punishment is completed, and every soul in the valley bendeth to the
will of the ancient god!"
Back from a hundred throats was flung the cry:
"It shall be done!" And from a thousand: "What is the will of the god?
How may we be saved? Tell us quickly, Analos!"
To his full height drew the priest. His face was alight with triumph.
He had chosen his words and his time well. Advantage was with him.
He cast a glance over his shoulder at Minos. The king had come down
from his throne. The nobles were grouped around him. To this new terror
Minos had found no answer. He had no comfort to give his frenzied
people to which they would listen. Superstition and fear and the wild
words of the priest held them in thrall. Analos had full sway.
Not for an instant was the crafty priest at a loss. His god was in the
ascendant. Now was the time to wrest into his own hands the power he
desired in the valley. With the blind faith of a fanatic, he believed
in the ancient religion; but, like many another priest in the world
before him, be invested his own person with much of the power of the
godhead he preached.
Troubled not a whit was he by the calamity that threatened in the
valley. That was punishment merely--how dire or how long he cared not.
When it was completed Sardanes would be in the hollow of his hand.
"Back to your homes, ye Sardanians!" he thundered. "And pray to the
Lord Hephaistos for mercy. On the third day from now shall word come
to you from the Gateway, the word of the ancient god. When the word
cometh, obey it, or he shall not spare you. Let the word go forth
through the valley that the captains of all the crafts and the nobles
of the land be assembled here in the Judgment House on the third day.
Then shall the commands of Hephaistos be made known to them. Away!
Away! Analos hath spoken."
He threw his mantle over his head, passed out through the narrow portal
at the side of the dais, and was gone, on his way through the gloom to
the Gateway. In subdued silence the people trooped from the hall and
slipped away to their homes.
* * * * *
Soon the thrashing propellers of the _Minnetonka_ carried her beyond
the radius of light sent out across the sea from the bursting
volcanoes. It lay far behind, a garish bar athwart the waters. That
faded also, until only a reflection could be seen against the sky, a
waving, lambent radiance, like that of the Aurora Australis--which the
voyagers had deemed it to be when first they had sighted it on their
way into Ross Sea.
As they passed into the gloom of the Antarctic night their perils
grew apace, and their real fighting began. Everywhere the bergs lay
about them. Now here, now there, darted the cruiser, backing, turning,
and zigzagging, seeking the safety course. Again rolling clouds made
stygian gloom, and the cruiser fought on through the unquiet seas by
the rays of her powerful searchlights.
One good turn of fortune came when the fury of the gale was abated. But
the icebergs drove on in the clutch of a racing current, a constant
menace. A hundred times the stout ship pushed through between drifting
masses of ice that closed their scintillant, clashing jaws behind
her, thrilling those on deck with the nearness of complete disaster.
As many times were the engines reversed in furious haste, to back the
steel-clad adventurer from a closing trap that would have crushed her
like a toy.
Here it was that the cool captain in command showed all his
resourcefulness, had need for all the splendid seamanship and the
reckless daring that had brought his ships unscathed through three
voyages into the polar zones.
Fortunate was the foresight that had armed the ship for the dangers she
was to meet. From her bow projected an immense ram of wrought steel,
almost razor keen at its cutting edge. All around her sides she was
rimmed with a protection of triple rails of the same metal, clamped
fast to her hull, and set with powerful springs, to withstand the shock
of impact with the floating ice. Ever her twin-screw propellers whirled
within a sheltering hood of steel. She had been dismantled of many of
her trappings and remodeled to conserve the two qualities most needed
in her present straits--speed and strength.
Useless as he was in the management of the ship, Polaris spent four
hours on deck to one in his cabin.
"Better to meet death up here in the free air, if death be fated for
us, than to strangle down there like a trapped beast," he said to Zenas
Wright. When perils thickened, he abandoned his cabin altogether,
brought a huge bearskin on deck and slept there, when sleep he must.
Although in life's evening, the scientist was almost as active. For
days Scoland seemed never to sleep at all. Under his guidance the
_Minnetonka_ pierced the dangers like a projectile launched from a
cannon of the gods, and directed by a calm, clear mind that lived
within it.
When they reached the lower end of Ross Sea a pale, uncertain light
that shone in the north behind told them of the coming of the polar
day. There a new and formidable obstacle confronted them. Where the
sea narrowed to a three-mile channel, beyond which lay wider water,
great ice floes had drifted in and barred the way. They were formed of
drift and flat ice, of no great thickness, but lay acres in extent in
a mighty jam. All along the edge of that field fretted and stormed the
giant bergs that had come down with the tide.
Back and forth across the narrowed sea the _Minnetonka_ steamed,
playing her searchlights in vain. No passage was open. Scoland called a
conference.
"There are two things we can do," he said. "We can hew ourselves a
safe harbor and wait for the jam to break up, when we can fight our
way through the channel with the bergs; or we can smash a way through
ourselves with the ram and explosives. We can't remain as we are, for
the big fellows are getting thicker. Every hour lost adds to the danger
of being crushed in where we can't get out, perhaps of being sunk.
Which shall it be?"
Lieutenant Everson, second in command of the _Minnetonka_, said
nothing. Zenas Wright, who was a scientist first and a sailor very far
second, said as much.
"The snug harbor idea likes me varra weel," remarked Engineer
MacKechnie, and he peered across the glistening floes and out at the
drifting bergs with anxious eyes.
"It may mean weeks," suggested Scoland. "What do you say, Janess?"
Polaris glanced down the barred lane of the channel with heightened
color. "I am no man of the seas," he answered quietly, "but I say,
break through. For, look you, the wind rises again. Here all is held.
Yonder in the open sea the bergs drive on. Where we break a pathway,
no berg may follow us. When we are come through, the gale will have
cleared the waters beyond, and we shall find our sailing smooth, ahead
of the jam and behind the bergs that are gone before."
"Aye, mon, mon, the boy is right," cut in MacKechnie. "This ship's not
a plaything. Yon is varra hard cutting, but she can do it, dinna fear."
Scoland turned to one of the mates. "Jameson, bring up the lyddite," he
ordered.
Where the floe fields seemed weakest and narrowest, near the left
of the channel, the captain sent men onto the ice with drills and
explosive, charge after charge of which was sunk into the floe and
exploded from a battery in one of the cruiser's boats.
Scoland took personal charge of the mining. Under his orders, his men
blasted out a large basin in the floe, a hundred yards in from its face.
"If we cut a channel straight in," he explained, "the pressure of the
jam is likely to close it at once, or else shut it like a vise on the
cruiser, after she is in. We will blast a narrow channel to the basin,
drive the ship in, and then make another basin farther on, and a second
channel. By zigzagging and letting the channels close in behind us, we
will avoid the danger of being nipped and held fast in the floe."
* * * * *
Like a watchful sentinel, the _Minnetonka_ patrolled the edge of the
floe, nosing small vagrant bergs from her way, in an endeavor to keep
cleared the spot where she would have to make her dash for the channel.
Scoland stood on the bridge, tapping its rail with a nervous hand, his
sharp eyes darting from one to another of the larger ice masses which
might be disposed to contest a passage with his ship.
The men on the ice signaled that their lyddite train was laid and
ready. They withdrew to a distance, one of them carrying the small
battery, from which the slender connecting wires led to the sunken
charges of explosive.
Picking up her boat, the _Minnetonka_, under reversed engines, backed
away and stood ready for the dash to the basin. Twice the captain
raised his megaphone to his lips to give the word, but each time he
hesitated. Suddenly he dropped it and sprang into the wheelhouse.
Immediately the ship lunged forward.
Keenly alive to these proceedings, Zenas Wright and Polaris, from their
station near the forward davits, wondered at this new move.
"Now what has happened?" questioned the scientist. "One would think we
were going into battle. See, they are manning the guns!"
Polaris glanced down the ship's rail and saw the eager-eyed gun crews
tearing the coverings from their long-silent ordnance. Forth from their
ports crept the grim muzzles of three of the _Minnetonka's_ six-inch
guns.
"Battle it is to be," said Polaris; "and yonder floats the enemy." He
pointed to where a huge iceberg had broken from its mooring at the edge
of the floe, and, momentarily gaining headway, was drifting in to bar
the channel way.
The ship swung about sharply. One of her powerful searchlights played
steadily on the face of the looming ice cliffs as it came on, its
hundred towers and crags glittering and flashing in the brilliant ray,
a mass of floating silver. A sharp word of command, and the three gun
captains, bronzed and alert, bent to their levers with machinelike
precision. The crackling of the floes and the grinding of the bergs
were lost in the thunder of the guns.
At that point-blank range, the effect of the volley was terrific. Where
the shells struck, the surface of the berg flew to pieces. The air in
the radius of the searchlight was filled with a shower of scintillating
splinters. Larger masses of ice slid from the face of the slow-moving
mountain and plunged sullenly into the tossing waves. A cavern was made
from which a thousand gleaming fissures shot into the darker body of
the ice behind.
Working like beavers, the gunners reloaded and sent another crashing
discharge into the floating wall at its water-line. As a small chunk of
ice is parted by a few blows from an ice pick, so the repeated impact
of the exploding shells shattered the berg and sundered it. Pitching
and toppling, down came its lofty towers into the sea. Its giant menace
crumbled into scores of insignificant blocks and a spreading bank of
drift.
Again the _Minnetonka_ backed and pointed her nose toward the floe,
whither her searchlights were concentrated. Scoland reappeared on the
bridge.
"Fire!" he shouted frenziedly through his megaphone.
A dark figure on the floe let its hand fall on the battery knob. A
succession of thunderous detonations followed, and from every lyddite
mine was flung skyward a column of water and glittering debris. For
many yards the mighty floe pitched and heaved.
Her twin propellers thrashing the water to foam, the _Minnetonka_ drove
her steel-clad length through the opened gap smashing the wreckage
right and left, and came to rest in the basin beyond. She was scarcely
in before, with a long, angry roaring, the great rift closed behind her.
As the cruiser pushed through the channel a cry of consternation rose
from the men on the ice, drowned in the turmoil of her passing, but
audible to one man on her decks whose ears were almost more than mortal
keen. Another cry came from the gunners as Polaris dashed through them
and hurled himself into the ice-strewn waters.
One of Scoland's sailors, separated by some distance from his fellows,
had climbed to an icy eminence near the west side of the basin. In the
disturbance which followed the blasting of the channel and its closing,
the ice where he stood had parted from the floe, and, his footing riven
from under him, the poor fellow had been pitched into the dark water in
the midst of the pounding drift.
From the deck of the cruiser, Polaris heard his despairing cry, and,
straining his eyes through the half twilight, saw his form silhouetted
for an instant against the ice before he took the plunge.
Straight and true leaped the son of the snows. One of the things
civilization had taught him that he had never known before was the art
of swimming. The staring gunners saw his white-clad figure reappear
once many feet distant from the side of the cruiser, and then he was
gone, tearing his way with powerful strokes through the swirl of ice
and water.
As fast as many willing hands could cast her loose, a boat was put
out from the ship. The miners on the ice rushed to the spot where
their comrade had disappeared. Across the drift one of the cruiser's
searchlights swept a long finger of light. It played on sullen waves
and heaving ice, but revealed no struggling swimmer.
"That is the last of Janess, and the finish of this expedition," rapped
out Scoland.
Zenas Wright, standing at the rail of the ship beside him, groaned
aloud. He did not see the fleeting, satisfied smile that accompanied
the words of Scoland. A mist that was not of the air or sea rose and
obscured his vision, and he wiped it away with his shaking old hand.
The boat had nearly reached the edge of the basin when a strong white
arm shot up, not ten feet away from it, and laid hold of a projection
on one of the larger pieces of drift. A glad cry arose from floe and
ship as, with a lusty thrashing of feet, Polaris emerged from the water
and sprawled his length across the slippery surface. Again the shout,
when it was seen that he dragged after him a smaller darker form.
Parkerson, the sailor, was unconscious, having struck his head against
floating ice in his fall.
When the boat returned, and Polaris still bearing the senseless man in
his arms climbed over the side, the cruiser's company cheered him as
only American sailors can cheer a hardy deed bravely done.
* * * * *
Minos the king left the Judgment House shortly after the going of
Analos, the high priest of Hephaistos. With the king went the nobles.
"When ye have slept, come ye on the morrow to the palace," he bade them
"There is much to be considered, wherein I would have your counsel."
A short way from the Judgment House, on the slopes of Mount Latmos,
stood the palace of the kings of Sardanes, a temple-like structure,
reared of the green stone from the cliff quarries and faced with lofty
pillars of white marble. Thither Minos walked slowly, pondering much.
One of his household, a lad of some eighteen years, who had tarried
when the people fled from the hall, now followed his master.
As they ascended the path through the great trees toward the royal
hill, a scrap of conversation drifted to the ears of the king from the
porch of the stone cottage of one of the tillers of the soil.
"The world hath rocked. Cold enters the valley. The dread high priest
threateneth the king. What will the outcome be?" A woman's voice asked
the question.
A man made answer: "Hephaistos ruleth the priests. Analos and fear rule
the people. What can the king do?"
Minos smiled. What, indeed? Yet there were some things that he could
and _would_ do.
A booming stroke of the huge drum echoed through the valley, telling
that the day was done, and that one faithful soul had not forsaken its
post. The drum swung between two pillars in the center of the Hall of
Judgment. Near to it was a vase of nearly the height of a man. In the
bottom of the vase was drilled a tiny hole. The vase was filled with
water from the holy River Ukranis. Usually a lad watched it.
When the water had seeped away and the vase was emptied, a process that
consumed some ten hours, it was the duty of the watcher to smite a blow
on the drum and to refill the vase. Then another took up the vigil. So
the Sardanians kept rude reckoning of time.
When Minos reached his home he sent the lad to fetch parchment, brush,
and pigment. By the flaring light of a torch he wrote:
To the Lady Memene, greeting:
Though the syllana be a flower little in accord with thy thought,
yet when the hour shall strike that thou hast need for a friend
who will do and dare all things, wear one on thy gown.
Folding his message, unsigned, the king called the lad.
"Alternes, take thou this parchment to the hall of the Lord Karnaon,"
he directed. "Give it into the hand of the Lady Memene, and to no
other. On thy way thither send to me Zalos and three of his men. Then
seek thou thy rest."
Minos seated himself on the topmost step of the palace portico and
leaned his head against a pillar. His eyes roved across the shadowy
valley, where the flickering light of the mountain moons mingled with
the cold, pale radiance of the Antarctic stars. He scarcely saw it. He
had fallen into a reverie.
Ill had gone the love-making of this king. Never, since the days when
they had played together as children, had the Lady Memene given him one
word of love, one single glance in which a lover might read joy. Ah,
those far, fair days of childhood! Then he had been but the younger
brother of the man who would be king. She had been kind then.
Imperious, proud-spirited, disdainful was this Lady Memene in her dark
loveliness. Minos could only dream that she would soften to him, and
to him alone. Days of terror were falling on the valley. Perhaps worse
were to come. He would like to stand at her side and hold her safe.
Well, he had sent her his first love letter. He would watch for the
syllana, the peerless blue rose of Sardanes that bloomed in the months
of the long night, and, though Sardanians knew it not, bloomed nowhere
else in the world besides. It was the Sardanian symbol of love. Ah,
that she would wear it, if only to call him to her service!
Presently came Zalos, a tall man of nearly forty years, captain of the
huntsmen, who were, even more than the nobles of the valley, close in
the affections and confidence of the king.
"Thou hast summoned us, O king," said the hunter, raising his arm in
salute and indicating three of his men who stood back in the shadows.
"Aye, Zalos, old friend, I would lay a trust upon thee," replied Minos.
"Set a guard about the hall of the Lord Karnaon. Let no hour pass that
thou or three of thy men are not on watch. If aught untoward befall
there, let the feet be fleet that bring the news to Minos. And if help
be needed there--I believe thou understandest--give it--even with thy
spears, and at the cost of life. I trust thee."
"Say no more. It shall be done," answered Zalos. "The life of every
hunter in Sardanes is thine, O king, for the asking." He saluted again,
and was gone along the forest paths with his men.
The king was aroused again by the cold muzzle of the dog Pallas thrust
against his hand. She whined inquiringly. He patted her rough head.
"Ha, Pallas," he said, "thou art another who fearest not the darkest
the Gateway hath to send. And thou art the namesake of a goddess, if
the scrolls of the priests read truly; a mighty goddess of old, who was
the friend of this Hephaistos. Pallas Athene they did name her. A most
wise goddess she, and came not to Sardanes." He rose and led the dogs
to their quarters at the rear of the palace hall.
* * * * *
Far up in the side of the Mount Latmos, above the palace, a deep cave
pierced the rock. It was the granary, storehouse, and treasury of the
Sardanian kings. Thither Minos climbed after his hunters were gone on
their errand, carrying with him a smoldering torch of hymanan wood.
At the entrance to the narrow, tortuous passage which led into the
cave he whirled the torch into flame and passed in. The cave was wide
and deep and high. Along its sides were huge bins, wherein was grain
sufficient to garrison a small army for some time. Some forty feet
within the cave a small jet of water spurted from a crevice in the
rock, ran along a well-worn channel to the mouth of the cave, and
drained away down the mountainside.
Minos thrust the torch into a cresset in the wall. He dragged forth
from its place a bulky chest of dark, carved wood. From within it shone
the gleam of polished metal. The king took out and laid down on the
rock floor one by one the pieces of a suit of armor--greaves, corselet,
a belt with pendant leaves of metal, a rounded helm with winged crest,
and last, a shining, keen-bladed sword in its sheath and thongs.
Aside from the battle in the crater, when Polaris Janess hewed his way
out of the kingdom, and an occasional bickering among the quarrelsome
fellows, Sardanes had never known war. Then whence this warlike gear?
Little there was in the valley that the king had not interested
himself to learn, with the one exception of the religion preached by
the priestly crew, at which he scoffed. One of his favorite crafts
was that of the smiths who wrought in the iridescent ilium smelted
from the mountainsides. It had been his fancy to fashion this suit
of mail, beating it from the finest metal and modeling it after the
armor sculptured in the groups of statuary at the Judgment House,
representing the founders of the race, the Greeks from the blue Aegean
Sea. Each piece had Minos copied, only making them of a larger mold,
to fit a figure taller and broader than that of any Greek who ever had
trodden the valley.
There were no arms like these in Sardanes. Those which the Greeks had
brought there had rusted into red dust centuries before.
Minos packed the bright trappings in a sack and carried them with him
back to the palace. He had a feeling that the time was near when he
should wear them. Then he, too, sought his couch, for he was sorely
wearied.
Ill tidings were early on the morrow. Another messenger rode down
the valley to tell that one more of the volcanic hills had yielded
up its spirit, and that a rim of white snow was creeping over the
mountainsides.
One by one came the nobles of the valley to the house of Minos. Each
man represented an ancient house, each house one hill of the valley's
ring. All were gloomy, some of them beset by fears but little removed
from those of the terror-stricken people. The king found less of
comfort and support among them than in the company of his hunters, who,
at the least and last, would die for him to a man.
Two there were, the oldest and the youngest, who upstood firmly for
him.
"That which the king shall decide will Garlanes abide by," said his
old-time friend and counselor, still hale and strong despite his
grizzled crown. "I am old, and it mattereth little. If it come to an
issue, the wrath of Hephaistos shall not divide my friend and me."
Almost insolent in his carelessness was the boy-lord Patrymion. "If
this be the end of the world, and thou promisest me a fight before the
end, then am I with thee, also, Minos the king," he laughed, "and will
kill me a fat priest or two right willingly, if so be that they will
fight. Methinks it is they and not thou who do weary their master."
So doubtful was the mien of the remainder of the nobles that the king
did not prolong the conference, but soon dismissed them. It was agreed
that no decision as to what course to take could be made until Analos
had made known the word from the Gateway.
More and more the king felt that he must meet what perils were before
him almost alone. His people and the nobles were slipping from him.
Well, so be it. His spirit rose to the test.
Two more days passed slowly. Three more of the moons of Sardanes waned
from their mountain heights forever. The state of the stricken people
bordered on frenzy. All the ordinary pursuits of the valley were
abandoned.
Then, at midday, the booming of the drum gave them a moment of wild
hope. The word of Hephaistos had come!
Surrounded by his hunters, Minos hastened down the hillside to the
Judgment House. From upper Sardanes down to the Gateway the people were
assembled, a throng that filled the hall and overflowed in the paved
court. The captains of the crafts were gathered at the foot of the
steps to the dais. The nobles were in their places. The king ran his
eyes quickly along them. Only the Lord Karnaon was missing.
Standing in front of the black stone throne of the high priest was a
heavily draped figure. It was not Analos, but one of his ministers.
* * * * *
As soon as the king had seated himself on the throne the priest
advanced from his station to the center of the dais and threw back the
robe from his face. He was Karthanon, oldest of all the priests of the
Gateway, the oldest man in all Sardanes.
For a moment he stood with eyes fixed on the floor, and there was tense
silence in the hall and without. He folded his arms. His cracked old
voice rose shrilly:
"Minos the king, nobles, and people of Sardanes, greeting. This word
from the Lord Hephaistos through the mouth of Analos, mightiest of his
servants. List and heed, for a terrible doom falleth, and there is but
one way in which it may be held back.
"Let Minos the king forego his kingship. It is written that no more
shall a king rule in Sardanes!
"Let her whom they name the Lady Memene be sent to the Gateway, the
bride of the great servant of the ancient god.
"Let the man Minos, who hath dared to lay his sacrilegious hand of
violence on the sacred person of the mighty high priest Analos, let him
be sent to the Gateway also, where he shall be scourged with whips and
humiliated as seemeth best to the servants of the god!
"Thus and thus only may the doom be averted, thus the god appeased.
Hephaistos hath spoken!"
Through the pause that followed his words broke the voice of Minos. The
face of the king was smiling no longer, but fierce as a winter sea as
he leaped down from his throne:
"This the answer of Minos to Analos. Had _he_ dared to come here with
such a message as he hath sent, Minos would have thus broken him in
two!"
He caught from its place the black stone seat that had stood there for
many a hundred years. It was of a weight that would have troubled two
stout men to lift, but in his anger the king plucked it up and swung it
aloft like a chair of wood. Then it crashed down on the marble floor
and splintered to fragments.
"So would I treat thee also, Karthanon, but thou art old, and after all
but the bearer of a message. Get thee back to the Gateway and tell thy
master that a king still rules in Sardanes!"
The priest shuffled to the entrance at the side of the dais. In the
doorway he turned and lifted his hands.
"On the people falleth the dread doom!" he cried.
Through the moments of these happenings not a man in the hall had
stirred, save Minos and the priest. Now there was a surge forward
toward the dais. Nearest the steps stood Istos, captain of the smiths.
He sprang up on the platform.
"Not for one man shall the whole people perish, one man and a maid. I,
for one, will strike a blow for the priest and the god!"
Up flashed his spear and drove straight at the breast of Minos. Before
ever the king could spring aside or guard, it struck him on the breast,
struck hard and clanged and fell on the marble floor.
Minos threw his cloak from him and leaped forward, the torchlights
glittering strangely on the suit of armor which he wore. He wrenched
from its sheath the good broad sword he had forged, and struck. The
keen blade hit the smith on the point of his shoulder and hewed
through to his ribs, so terrible was the stroke. With a scream Istos
fell and died.
Made mad by fear and superstition, the men in the hall pressed forward.
Up the steps they sprang to avenge the smith and seize the king. Minos
met them with sword aloft and a fierce smile on his face.
"Never thought Minos to slay his own people," he cried bitterly, "but
here be blows for the taking!"
The unarmed nobles fled from the dais. Only Garlanes and the lad
Patrymion tarried, seeking weapons. From the rear of the throne poured
a score of Minos's hunters.
"For the king!" they shouted, and ranged themselves at his back.
Just as the battle hung in the balance a lad leaped through the door by
which the priest had departed. He sprang to the side of the king.
"From Zalos I come," he gasped. "He bade me to tell thee that Karnaon
taketh his daughter, the Lady Memene, to the Gateway!"
Three Sardanians lay dying on the steps to the dais. Those behind
shrank back from the whirling ilium blade.
"Now here is another black game afoot!" cried Minos. He sheathed his
sword. Before the crowd in the hall could guess his purpose, he and
his hunters had dashed in hot haste from the rear door of the Judgment
House.