THE LAUGHTER OF MEMENE
In the forest on the slopes above the Judgment House, Minos and his men
halted, and the king made a division of his forces. If there was to be
battle of the few against the many, he must have a fortress.
"Imacar," he said, "take thou six men and speed on to the cave in the
side of Latmos. Hold it against all comers. Seven men may there defy a
thousand. I come hither anon, I and these others."
In haste Imacar told off his men, and the king and the others plunged
ahead along the forest paths. Below them they could hear the clamor of
the crowd at the Judgment House, now confused and undecided whither to
pursue.
Over to the left of the rugged heights of the Gateway mount rose the
more precipitous steeps of the Mount Zalmon. Between the two was the
notch of the northern pass that led into the Hunter's Road. At the
foot of Zalmon lay the marshes of the holy river Ukranis. Still farther
to the west, on the turn of the hill toward Mount Meor and Mount
Latmos, lay the estate and palace of the Lord Karnaon.
As they ran, Minos questioned the lad who had come from Zalos. He
learned that two other priests of the Gateway had come down with
Karthanon the Aged. While he had gone on to the Judgment House to
deliver the message of Analos, they had proceeded to the home of
Karnaon. There a conference had been held. At its end the Lady Memene
had been summoned. With the priests, her father, and a number of
servants they had set out for the Gateway.
"And did she not resist?" asked Minos of the lad.
"Nay, O king, not openly, and thereat was Zalos much perplexed. He
followeth on with two men, and knoweth not whether to intervene or no."
There was no direct way by which to reach the Gateway from the Mount
Zalmon. The pathway skirted the marshes to the green stone bridge
across the Ukranis. From the bridge a road lay straight to the foot of
the terraced hill of the god.
Minos, his thirteen hunters, and the lad left the slopes a distance
above the marshes, crossed the tilled lands, and reached the bridge.
They were none too soon. When they reached the river they could hear
voices on the marsh path in the direction of Mount Zalmon. The king
bade his men hide in a clump of astarian bush on the river bank.
"Bide thou there, and stir not unless I call," he ordered. Alone, he
strode on to the bridge and took his stand in the angle of the first
buttress.
He had not long to wait. Within five minutes the party from the palace
of Karnaon hurried from the path to the road and approached the bridge.
First came the Lord Karnaon, clutching his daughter by the arm. On
either side of them walked a sable-robed priest of Hephaistos. Close in
the rear seven or eight men of the lord's household slunk along, with
many a side-long glance, fearful of they knew not what.
The Lady Memene looked neither to right nor left, but carried herself
very straight. Her face was pale now, but her eyes blazed, and her
mouth was set in an ominous line.
A burst of shouting came to their ears from up the valley in the
direction of the Judgment House, and the members of the party paused
at the bridge. As they hesitated, came a hollow clanking, and an
apparition moved out from the buttressed rail and confronted them in
the bridge's center--a frightening apparition in clashing armor.
For a moment there was awed silence. Karnaon let go his hold on his
daughter's arm and stepped a pace forward, for the lord was no coward.
The two priests of the Gateway drew close together behind him. From the
servants rose a moan of terror, and they seemed ready to make a break
up the valley road.
Not one of the party recognized Minos the king in the towering figure
on the bridge. To their startled imaginations, he seemed of more than
mortal proportions. The red glare from the heights of Zalmon and the
Gateway shimmered on his armor. His winged helm shaded his face. For
aught they guessed in their first fright, he might be a supernatural
messenger come forth to meet them from the temple of Hephaistos--if not
the god himself.
He spoke, and broke the spell.
"Whither in such haste goeth the Lord Karnaon, and for what purpose?"
demanded the king.
Karnaon started, and immediately pushed forward. "Ha, 'tis but Minos,
who was the king," he growled. "Bar not our way, for we be summoned in
haste to the Gateway."
"'Who _was_ king'?" repeated Minos sternly. "Mend thy manners, lord,
for the king still liveth, and while he liveth he ruleth."
"Thou art no more king. Analos hath banned thee with the ban of
Hephaistos," countered Karnaon. "But I will not waste words with thee.
We must hasten."
"Tarry a moment, Karnaon. Thou art all too hasty," Minos replied. "I
would learn the mind of the Lady Memene concerning this journey to the
Gateway, and if she knoweth its purpose, and goeth willingly."
"What's that to thee, rash man?" said Karnaon. "My daughter doth not
wait thy word as to her goings and comings. She doeth as I, her father,
command."
"That is only half the truth, father," broke in Lady Memene. "As thou
hast commanded, thus far indeed have I done, but there is little of my
own will in it."
* * * * *
As she spoke, the girl whipped her cloak aside, and the heart of Minos
leaped within him. For on the whiteness of her gown was set a splendid
syllana bloom!
One glimpse he had of the shining petals of the blue rose, and the
cloak fell back and hid it, but in that one glimpse the mind of the
king cast all else aside. She had summoned his aid. Gladly would he
face priest or god or angry men for this woman.
One of the priests had been whispering low among the men of Karnaon.
Now he sprang aside.
"Seize him!" he yelled.
Armed with spears, the men rushed at the head of the bridge. Karnaon
and the girl were thrust aside. Minos saw the flash of glittering
points before him, and leaped backward, tearing his sword from its
sheath. At the same instant Zalos and his two men, who had crept up
unobserved, leaped from the shadow of the bridge to rush in the rear of
the spearsmen.
Minos was not minded to slay any of these poor fellows. Already his
heart was sore for the four dead men he had left in the Judgment House.
Only to save his lady and his own land would he slay. He shouted to
his hunters who lay concealed. With the giant form of the king on the
bridge in front and the seventeen determined hunters who now ranged
themselves behind them, Karnaon's men lost all stomach for fighting.
They hung back.
"In, and bear him down!" shouted Karnaon. He snatched a spear from one
of his servants. "Fear not, here cometh aid!" It was true. Down the
valley came the clamor of running men. Karnaon set foot on the bridge.
Minos leaped from where he stood. Spears clashed on his armor, but
he was unscathed by edge or point. Catching one of Karnaon's men by
the shoulders, Minos floored three of his fellows with the sweep of
the man's body. He broke through them in an instant. The Lord Karnaon
struck fiercely at him, but the stroke fell short.
At the side of the bridge stood the Lady Memene. The king paused at
her side. His hunters closed in around them. By reason of his superior
height, the king could look over the heads of the men around him.
Scarce three hundred yards away on the white road were more than a
score of running Sardanians, shouting loudly as they came.
"Choose thou, lady," he said low in the girl's ear, "and quickly, for
here come those who will make choice for us. One word, and I hold thee
against all Sardanes, and to the death."
Here was a strange girl, truly. She looked the king in the eye coolly.
"Choose thyself, and please thyself, O king," she answered.
"Thou wearest my flower," he replied.
"And I bear also a gift for the priest," she interposed. "See." She
opened her cloak and showed him the hilt of a long-bladed ilium dagger.
"Little joy would he have had of the bride he did summon," she said,
and laughed a short, hard laugh.
Karnaon's men had rallied. In a moment they would rush the hunters. On
down the roadway tore the party from the Judgment House. Minos parleyed
no longer. He stooped and caught the girl under shoulders and knees,
lifting her as a mother might lift a child.
"To Latmos!" he shouted. "Death be the lot of anyone that stays us!"
Thrusting his way through the hunters, he took the marsh path, running
lightly and fleetly, for all the weight of his armor and his lovely
burden. Zalos led his hunters in a short, fierce charge that turned
back the men of Karnaon, and then the hunters broke and followed fast
on the heels of their master.
Where the tilled fields broke into the foothills of Mount Zalmon, Minos
turned, and plunged into the forest, making straight for Latmos. Before
him all was quiet, but from the rear, where Zalos and the hunters
covered his flight, the clamor and clash of arms told him that they
were hard pressed. He set the Lady Memene down and drew his sword.
Two of the foremost hunters made a chair for the girl with their
crossed hands, and started on for the cave. Minos ran back along the
forest pathway. He found a running battle. Karnaon and his servants had
joined forces with some thirty Sardanians who had gone to the bridge
under the leadership of Gallando the smith. Finding their efforts to
win the hunters of Zalos to their aid of no avail, they were making a
desperate attempt to annihilate them.
Already two of the stout hunters were down. A number of others bore
spear wounds, for all of the men of both the lord and the smith were
armed with spears or daggers, and several carried axes.
Minos strode through the press of men to the center of the fighting. He
found Zalos bleeding from a gash in his cheek, growling and dealing out
blows like a wounded bear.
"Thou has done enough here, old friend," cried the king in the
huntsman's ear. "On to the cave, thou and those with thee. 'Tis time
that I, who am well protected, took a few of the knocks that are
falling. Nay, tarry not. I will hold these who follow in play for a
time."
Up flashed his sword, and he sprang into the center of the path. The
hunters dashed by him into the shadows, and he stood alone against the
pursuers. First man to meet the king was the Lord Karnaon. Spear met
sword in midair and, straightway that spear was pointless. The keen
blade shore through its haft, cutting it like a straw.
"Thee I will not slay, Karnaon, who wouldst slay me!" cried Minos. With
his left hand he clutched the noble by the belt, jerked him forward,
and hurled him back against the foremost of the pursuers so violently
that both men fell and lay stunned in the path. Half a dozen ilium
spears clashed on the king's armor, and one grazed his neck as he
leaped over the fallen men and met their fellows. In an instant he was
among them, swinging his weapon until it shone in the pale light of the
stars like a whirling ilium wheel.
"Come on, thou whom the priest hath made mad," he shouted. "Minos, who
before had little to fight for, now hath much. Here lieth a short,
straight road to the Gateway." As he shouted, he struck.
So close he was, that spears were well-nigh useless to the men who bore
them, and daggers fell harmless upon his armor. The broad, keen blade
made sore havoc among the unarmored Sardanians. Three men were down
and dead and a half dozen others were out of the fight with wounds to
nurse, when Gallando the smith faced the king.
Gallando fought with an ax. He was a large man and powerful. Watching
his chance, he leaped to one side, just as Minos stumbled over the body
of one of the slain men. For only an instant the broad blade faltered,
and gave the smith opportunity. He swung his ax with both hands and
brought it down on the winged helm of the king.
Minos saw the smiting danger and stooped low to avoid the stroke. It
fell on the helmet with the clang of an anvil blow. Down to his knees
sank the king, his senses swaying. Had the stroke of the smith's ax
been one jot more direct, his opponent had not risen again; but it
lacked that jot. The rounded helm turned the flow aside. The ax crashed
from it to the ground, and was buried to the haft.
Recovering his balance, the smith poised himself for another stroke.
Minos, his head still swimming, raised his sword as if to parry, then
cast it from him suddenly, lunged forward and gripped Gallando about
the knees. He put forth his strength in a mighty tug, causing the
smith to let fall the ax. Before ever a man could move to his rescue,
Gallando found the arms of the king clipped about his waist.
Never but once in his life had a man bested Minos at the wrestling
game. Now, fighting for his life, he crushed the burly smith to him.
Twice he contracted the muscles of his great arms. The veins of his
forehead stood out with the strain, and his helm fell from his head.
Once more he exerted all the strength of his body, bending forward to
bring his weight to bear. Something snapped like a breaking stick.
Gallando's head fell back and his body went limp in the arms of Minos.
His back was broken.
With Gallando dead and Karnaon out of the battle, the Sardanians lacked
a leader with sufficient heart to take up the tale. They stood for a
moment with staring eyes as the corpse of the smith rolled at their
feet. Then they gave way and ran.
Catching his helmet and sword from the ground, Minos hastened on toward
the cave. On the hillside above the palace he stopped, cupped his hands
and shouted, "Alternes!"'
A faint hail from below told that the lad had heard the call. "Loose
the beasts," cried the king, "and then seek safety."
He waited a few moments, and then sent down through the dusk a long,
shrill whistle. A full-throated chorus was his answer. Before he
reached the mouth of the cave, Pallas and her six gray children had
shot up the hill and were leaping about their master.
* * * * *
Basin after basin, channel on channel, the roaring lyddite tore in the
ice jam at the lower end of Ross Sea. Untiringly the miners of Captain
Scoland plied their drills. The steel-clad _Minnetonka_, ever restless
as a prisoner pacing his narrow cell, churned and smashed about in each
new harbor which the blasters formed for her, thus preventing the ice
forming again into a solid mass, and holding her fast. Always alert,
she dashed through each new passageway.
Now to the right, now to the left, the cruiser advanced, as the men
blasted her zigzag channel course. As each new forward step was taken,
the pressure of the vast jam closed the way and the channel was left
behind. It was slow work, but sure. Behind the adventurers the sun came
slowly on his southern path, turning dim twilight into weak and pallid
day.
Steadily as they worked, ten days passed and saw the blasters little
more than a third of the way across the enormous jam.
All around them thundered and crashed the ice in the grip of the great
breaking forces. At times the uproar of smitten bergs and cracking
floes made the sound of their exploding lyddite seem a puny and futile
mockery of nature's mighty hammers. On the decks of the _Minnetonka_
uneasy men paced restlessly, and worn by waiting and danger, cursed or
prayed, according to their natures. In their long hutches, the Alaskan
dogs, still more uneasy, snarled and howled.
Seeking to turn the delay to some advantage, Polaris selected from the
forty-odd dogs on the ship seven of the likeliest, and, with sledge and
harness, left the ship to acquaint himself with them. It was time that
they knew the master whom they must carry both fast and far. Huskies
they were, from the finest of the Yukon strains, big and shaggy, their
coats splotched with brown and white, but they were not the equals in
size or strength of gray Marcus and his fellows, which the son of the
snows had driven aforetime. He found them not at all lacking in temper.
On a level spot in the floe, not far from the ship, Polaris laid out
his harness, and chose his animals for the positions in which he would
have them run. Largest of all the brutes was the tawny Boris, sullen
and vicious, but intelligent. Polaris selected him as the team leader,
and the lessons began.
Awed at first by their strange surroundings, affrighted by the
thundering ice and the occasional shuddering of the floe, the brutes
flinched and whimpered, paying little attention to the man. Then over
their backs and about their ears shrieked and cracked an eighteen-foot
lash that demanded notice. With ears laid flat, the dogs cowered into
a tense group, burning eyes alternating from the writhing whip, which
snapped above them, but fell not, to the man who wielded it.
Urged by lash and voice, not one, but the seven as one, responded in
a concerted rush on the new master. Snarling hideously, they flung
themselves upon the man. Sailors watching from the ship set up a cry of
consternation when they saw Polaris apparently overwhelmed by a wave of
maddened dogs. But the son of the snows was a match for any dog team
that ever snaked a sledge. He met their rush with a powerful hand and a
ready whipstock, that seemed never to miss its aim. For the whip that
had only menaced before fell now in earnest, fell on tender snouts
with stinging force and a most disconcerting accuracy. Once more the
mutinous beasts cowered away, trotting in circles with bared teeth, but
loth to try conclusions with that vengeful whip-butt.
Boris, the leader, alone was unsubdued and persistent. Again and again,
the brute gathered himself together and charged and leaped, howling
with rage. Each time the waiting whip rose up to meet him, and the
great brute, twisting his head in midair, sprang short and aside, to
circle madly on the ice for another opening.
Soft-voiced methods were of no avail with Boris. He must be made to
feel the power of the master, must be conquered at once, or he would be
forever treacherous and useless.
Again the dog sprang from his haunches. That time no whip seemed
waiting, but rested at the man's side. The huge brute, with a moan of
hate, launched himself straight at his adversary's throat. Crouched
low, Polaris let him come. Lightning quick, the left hand of the
man flashed out and closed on the windpipe of Boris, just below the
clashing jaws. Watching sailors on the _Minnetonka_ rubbed their eyes
and looked again in wonder.
* * * * *
Polaris stood rigid as a statue in steel. His left arm extended
straight in front of him, and in his grasp he held the struggling
animal, held him as he had caught him, in midair, a yard above the
ice--and Boris was no toy, but would have tipped the scales to the
weight of a powerful man. Polaris' cap had fallen to the ice in the
struggle. He wore his white bearskin garments. His yellow hair tossed
back, he seemed to the watching, wondering men the embodiment of the
wild spirit of this wild land, come into his own again.
With a stern eye to the other dogs, he held Boris, as though in a vise,
and fear grew in the stout and sullen heart of the brute. To the terror
of those steely fingers that clutched his throat was added the terror
of the empty air, through which his four feet thrashed madly, and could
find no hold or rest. The deadly grip tightened. The dog's struggles
grew weaker and weaker. His jaws gaped wide. He gasped and gulped in
vain for one breath of air that should give him life and energy and
spirit to fight on. His struggles ceased, and he hung limp in the hand
of the master.
Gently Polaris set the animal down on the ice, and relaxed the grim
hold on his throat. With great gasps Boris took into his lungs once
more the life-giving air. The man snaked in the long whiplash. Waiting
a few moments until the great dog's senses had fully returned, he
took a yard of the thongy tip of the lash and laid it smartly across
the flanks of Boris, not cruelly, but with sufficient sting to make
the punishment tell. The other dogs trotted uneasily about, sniffing,
whining, and eying their fallen leader.
Presently Polaris stood up, turned his back deliberately on Boris and
walked a few steps from him, still holding the whip. He called the
dog to come to him. The huge animal arose, shook himself, glanced
shamefully at his mates, stretched himself, tossed his head with a
snort, and followed after the man. Polaris bent down and patted his
shaggy head, with a word of encouragement. At his touch, the brute
trembled slightly, but the man's voice was reassuring, and the whip
hung idle. Boris rubbed his head against the knee of Polaris and
whined. He had found his master, and he knew it. Other dogs might, and
did, turn on Polaris again, but Boris never.
One by one, the other brutes learned their lesson of obedience, learned
that they served a wise and vigilant master, and gave in to the lash
and the harness. Soon the man was able to take them far afield, and
crossed the floe to the east for a number of long runs.
On the twenty-ninth day from the firing of the first lyddite blasts,
the stout _Minnetonka_ shook her sides clear of the drift-ice from the
last channel, and shot southward into free water. Picking up the miners
and Polaris and his team, Scoland pointed a course some three miles
from the eastern shore, and the cruiser tore on under forced draft, so
continuously that the canny MacKechnie shook his gray head many a time
and oft over the depletion of coal-bunkers.
"'Tis all varra weel, the gettin' on in such haste," he grumbled,
"'but, ma certes, 'twill be a long, weary drive back again, and coal
doesna grow on icebergs."
Several days of clear going gave all on the ship opportunity to take
much needed rest, after the perils and labor that had racked both minds
and bodies. Spring and spirits returned to jaded men, and it was an
eager and hopeful crew that cheered to the echo on the day that Polaris
shouted from the bridge:
"Steer the ship in to the left. Yonder is a point of land that my eyes
remember well, and behind it a harbor that marks the end of this
journey, I am certain."
It was the rocky promontory across which his own ship of ice had been
broken, nearly two years before. Inland, to the north, extended the
looming barrier range, which he had sought in vain to pass.
Polaris and old Zenas Wright stood on the bridge as the cruiser rounded
the headland. The young man clapped the geologist on the shoulder,
and pointed up the snow-covered slope, that led from the cove to the
foothills beyond.
"There lies the way," he shouted, "straight in to the east, the way to
Sardanes!"
* * * * *
Near to the cave entrance on the Latmos hill King Minos found the Lord
Patrymion. The boy was sitting on a boulder, swinging his heels against
it and whistling in a minor key the bars of a Sardanian love ditty.
Leaning against the rock beside him was a long-hafted bear spear. In
his belt were thrust a dagger and a heavy-bladed hatchet.
As the king came from among the trees, the lad stood up and saluted.
Minos saw that the arm he raised was bandaged above the elbow. The
king, whose own neck bore a slight cut, where a spear had stung as it
hummed by him in the forest mêlée, and whose tunic and armor were red
with blood not his own, smiled grimly.
"And did the Lord Patrymion perchance fall and bruise himself in the
forest paths?" he asked.
"Nay, nay, O king, I came by this while a-hunting," laughed the lad.
"Hunting?" queried Minos.
"Aye, the game we play now in Sardanes hath fulfilled a part of its
contract to my great satisfaction. Not an hour agone I did stick me the
good, fat priest whereof we talked awhile back. Right pleasantly did he
kick and squeal--"
"Hast slain a priest of the Gateway?" Minos asked him. "I fear that is
ill done."
"Nay, king, 'twas well done. 'Twere well, indeed, with us, were every
one of the black crew hot alight in their own fires, with Analos, the
high priest, frying merrily atop the heap. Then, perhaps, would the
people listen to reason. This fellow did come from the Gateway to my
palace on Epamon's sides, whither I had gone from the Judgment House
to arm myself. He would have haled me thence to the Gateway like an
unwilling maid. When he found me coy, he did raise mine own household
men against me. Well, he got a dagger in his midriff for his trouble.
And I got this scratch on the arm, with perchance a slit throat to
follow, were it not that I am somewhat swift of foot. My men did rage
upon me like fiends when they saw the priest down. I thought it better
to die here in good company than where I was, so I came away."
"Hast seen Garlanes?" asked Minos.
"Nay, nor will I," said the lad shortly. "The men of Analos slew him
on the portico of his own hall. That I had from the priest who came to
summon me. Had he not given me that word, I might have spared him."
The king bowed his head. Garlanes had been his dear friend.
Within the cave the warmth from the bowels of the hill was almost
oppressive. The men had lighted torches and oil lamps, and were
dressing their hurts, of which there were not a few, and discussing in
low tones the details of the fighting.
In a carved chair of wood, just beyond the rim of light, the Lady
Memene sat. Her face, as she rested it on her hand, was almost devoid
of expression, but her black eyes, alert and lustrous, missed no detail
of the scene before her. Minos removed a part of his armor, and laved
his head and hands in the little streamlet. Although the girl appeared
to take no note of him, not a move that he made escaped her. Each time
that the king's glance strayed to her, and that was often, she appeared
to be watching the hunters or the dogs, or anything but himself.
When he had removed the stains of battle, Minos crossed to her side. He
seated himself on an ancient chest and considered her for a time with
puzzled eyes. She made no move, nor seemed to notice that he was there.
"Lady," he said at length, "lady of the blue rose and the keen dagger,
who reckest so little which thou usest, canst tell me now why thou hast
come here?"
"Come here?" she echoed quickly. "Why, because thou didst carry me a
part of the way and thy friend yonder the other part. Why else?" She
flashed him an elfish smile.
"So we did," he answered. "Wouldst go back?"
"Not yet--unless thou sendest me," she replied cooly. "There is little
at the Gateway to stir my heart. Here--" She paused, and the king bent
forward that he might lose no word of her answer. "Here, methinks
events will pass that will be worth the watching--unless thou dost
weary of my presence and bid me go seek Analos."
Minos straightened his back suddenly. "Lady," he said, "I find thee of
a temper like to that of the Lord of Patrymion, who would make believe
that he careth naught for tears and death and doom, and laugheth at all
alike. Yet back of all thy quips and scorns I believe there dwelleth in
thee a spirit brave and true, as there doth in him also."
The girl inclined her head, but there was mockery in the bow. "Thou
doest me too great honor, my Lord Minos," she replied. "Count not too
greatly on thy estimate, for I fear thou hast mistaken me sadly."
This fencing with words suited Minos not at all. "In one thing I
mistake not," he said, "and that is the heart of Minos." He hesitated,
and then asked her, gravely and slowly, "Lady Memene, wilt be the bride
of Minos?"
A ringing peal of silvery laughter was his answer, but the girl drew
farther back into the shadows that the king might not see the red flush
on her cheeks.
"Strange is the time thou choosest for thy wooing of a bride, O king!
Thy kingdom tottereth. Scarce a score in all the land are faithful to
thee. Thy head is target for curse of priest and spear of enemy. Mayhap
Sardanes itself dieth. Yet dost thou woo a bride."
Up to his full height drew the king and looked down upon her. She
waited for an angry answer, but none came.
"Nay, thou canst not provoke me, lady," he said gently. "I know not
how it is, but the love I bear thee I think is so strong that it will
endure all things and abide forever. All that thou sayest is true. In
spite of all, I wait an answer."
Still farther into the shadows withdrew Memene. Her eyes shone
strangely.
"The end is not yet. When that end cometh--when thou hast won or lost
all that there is to win or lose, then thou shalt have an answer, King
Minos, shouldst thou still desire it."
"Be it so, lady, I hold thee to the end, and will seek my answer then,
though it be at the gates of death." He bowed and turned away.
* * * * *
Outside the cave two of the dogs were baying. Through the rifted rock
came the voice of the Lord Patrymion.
"Here cometh the overlord of the Gateway devils. Say, king, shall I
loose the beasts on him?"
"Nay, loose them not," called Minos. He caught up his arms and hastened
to join the lad on the hillside.
Some forty paces down the slope stood Analos.
Patrymion held the gray dogs by their collars. "Well would I like to
see them worry him," he grumbled. "Perhaps it is best for the brutes,"
he added. "They would surely die of a stomach sickness, did they taste
him."
"What wouldst thou of Minos, Analos of the Gateway?" demanded the king.
"Thou hast turned the valley to madness. Here we have little need for
thee. Were it not that I will slay no more except to save myself and
those with me from death, I would send a spear through thee where thou
standest, Analos. Say, what wouldst thou here?"
"Insult me thou hast, slay me thou canst not," answered the priest,
glowering up at the king from where he stood with folded arms.
"Hephaistos protecteth his servant. I came to say to thee that the
great doom falleth apace. Mountain after mountain adown the valley
giveth up its fires. All upper Sardanes wasteth. This shall go on
until thou and those with thee are humbled and Sardanes is as one in
submission to the ancient god.
"Beside thee standeth one who this day hath smitten a priest of the
Gateway. Give him up. Come thou with him to the Gateway, thou and the
girl. For the sake of thy people, Minos, for the sake of the very
existence of the Sardanes, yield thee to the god."
"Analos," answered the king, "did Minos for one instant believe that
by any act of his Sardanes might be saved, in that instant he would
perform it, however bitter. But thou are a madman, thy god of thine own
distorted fancy. The things that are happening are in obedience to some
law of nature whereof we know not. They will pass, and all will be as
before, or they will continue, and Sardanes will be no more. Let that
fall out as it is fated. Minos waits the end here, and yieldeth to no
man."
Zalos and several of the hunters had come from the cave. Analos turned
from the king to them.
"What saith the Captain Zalos?" he demanded. "For this rash man, no
longer king of thine, and for the woman he hath stolen, art thou
prepared to die and to go cursed of Hephaistos to the torments he hath
in store for those who rebel against him? Say, wilt not give him up, he
and the maid, and save thyself and thy companions?"
"That will I not," answered the captain. "We have eaten the king's
bread, and we are his faithful servants. Where he standeth, there stand
we. Whither he leadeth, there we follow, be it to battle, to death, or
to ghostland and its torments, if such there be. Forsake him? Not until
my breath forsaketh my body!"
Zalos faced his men. "Is it not so?" he growled. "If there be a man
among ye who thinketh otherwise, let him speak and stand forth." He
fumbled with the dagger in his belt.
"Needst not fret with thy dagger, Captain," laughed one of the hunters.
"We be all of one mind, and thou hast said it."
"I thank thee, friend," said Minos. His hand fell lovingly on the
captain's shoulder.
"After all this useless talk, methinks some diversion impendeth,"
whispered the lad Patrymion. "Unless mine eyes are passing poor, spear
points gleam in the thicket yonder and men are moving."
Minos peered keenly into the shadows beyond the priest. He, too, saw
dim, moving shapes, and caught the glint of bare blades. He tightened
his grip on his sword-hilt.
"Zalos," he said, "slip thou within the cave and fetch me the ilium
disk that leaneth against the wall near to the spring. I think there is
like to be more fighting anon, and I am still unwearied. Take the dogs
with thee. They be of rash mettle, and I would not have them harmed."
Analos still stood in the little clearing, eying them gloomily, his
features working.
"An the holy rascal swelleth much more with anger he will burst, and
the foulness of the venom let loose from him surely will overcome us
all," said Patrymion with grim humor. "See how his beard waggeth."
Zalos came from the cave and passed to the king an oval plate of
burnished ilium, nearly four feet in length and wide enough more than
to cover his broad chest. It was the shield which went with the other
arms he had fashioned. It had a broad leather arm-strap and a handhold
affixed to its concave side.
The king slipped it onto his arm.
With a shake of his shoulders, the priest cast his black robe from him
and stood forth in the red vestments of the office of death. He waved
his arms in air.
"Sons of Sardanes," he roared, "do the god's will!"
From every rock and tree near him creeping men sprang to their feet. A
swarm of yelling spearmen charged up the slope.