KALIN WINS HIS KNOWLEDGE
For fifty miles Polaris and Kalin drove the Sardanian ponies along the Hunters' Road, while the dogs of the pack raced strong and free at the sides of the sledge. Alas, it was now but a five-dog pack! Octavius had given his life in the crater, in the mad fight to avenge the death of Pallas. Two Sardanians had fallen under his gashing jaws when a spear-thrust found his vitals, and in his death-pain he had leaped over the rim of the fire-pit to the molten lake in the depths.
Of the pack remained Juno, Hector, Julius, Nero, and Marcus, the giant leader.
Urged on by voice and crack of whip, the ponies tore along the snow-paths, mile after mile. Rose Emer rode on the sledge, and the men beside it with the dogs.
When they had traveled fifty miles or more, the little beasts showed signs of going to pieces, and Polaris halted them. Enough fodder had been taken from the valley to give the animal one good meal. The men fed them and made camp.
After the ponies were somewhat rested from their long pull in the snows, Polaris pointed their noses toward home and whipped them into the trail. Tossing their heads in the air, the little beasts set off along the road in a cloud of fine snow-dust upflung from their scurrying hoofs.
"Yonder goeth the last link with thy land, Kalin," said Polaris, as the men and the maid stood to watch the departure of the small horses.
"Aye," replied the priest and smiled. "Now be thy land my land. On to the north," and he pointed ahead with steady hand to where the massive ice barrier stood in their path, its glittering sides gleaming a steely blue in the sunlight. He turned to Rose Emer.
"Lady," he said in the halting English, of which he had acquired a surprising knowledge, considering the few days that had elapsed since he first had heard that tongue—"lady, Kalin—American—now."
"Yes," smiled the girl in answer, "am I not well guarded? Two American gentlemen to watch over me. I could have no better protectors."
Kalin caught the significance of her remark, and smiled his wonderfully sweet, sad smile—the smile that always struck to the heart of Polaris with a prescience of sorrow to come.
Inland they pushed, skirting the base of the towering ice-wall, seeking for some spot where they might pass over or through it. Disaster dogged fast on their heels, waiting to strike.
On the seventh day out from the valley the first blow fell.
They had passed the ice-ridge. After three days of groping along its base, they came to a place where the mighty wall was deeply notched and the slope was less steep. There, aided by a heavy fall of snow, which partly melted and then froze, giving a scant foothold on the ice-hills, they were able to pass.
One entire day was consumed in making passage. At length they passed the wall in safety, and found themselves in an apparently interminable stretch of plain and hummock and crevasse, where the going was slow and laborious and exceedingly perilous.
Then the priest fell ill.
Either the unaccustomed fare—their diet now consisted almost entirely of fish and boiled snow-water prepared over the little oil stove—or the rigor of the atmosphere and the exertions caused a sudden decline in the bodily powers of Kalin. Strive as he might, his waning strength became apparent, and he lagged in the journeying through the steppes of snow.
The capstone of trouble came when his eyes unused to the continual glare of the relentless sun on the fields of snow and the cliffs of ice, gave way to the dread snow blindness, the bête noir of all explorers in polar regions.
For hours he was able to conceal his blindness from his companions. With stubborn will bent to the task, he ran on with the sledge, guiding himself with his hand at its rail, after the last faint glimmerings of sight had vanished. He had a splendid will, and he made it dominate his weakening body long after it seemed that his muscular strength was unequal to the demand of the trail. It was impossible for them to travel as swiftly as they had, but he would not yield to his creeping weakness, and still ran on.
When the darkness fell he was undismayed and said nothing, hoping against hope that it would pass away. He could no longer keep up his pretense, however, at the first camping spot, and his companions saw him groping helplessly once he had quitted the side of the sledge.
His plight struck a chill to the stout heart of Polaris, who realized that in speed lay their only hope of earthly salvation. Bitter weather lay to the north of the ice barrier, and there was almost no game from which to replenish their stock of food. The days of travel had diminished it to the point where a fresh supply had come to be a problem demanding speedy solution.
Now, to accommodate their pace to that of the tottering blind man, or to carry him, nearly doubling the load of the dogs, spelled almost sure defeat.
He gave no inklings of his foreboding to either Kalin or Rose Emer, but cheered the priest as best he might in his affliction, and pressed on with what speed was possible. Three more laps on the journey they made before the steely fortitude of Kalin gave way, and he could no longer force his exhausted limbs to bear the weight of his failing body. In mid career across the snows, he stumbled from the path and fell prone in lee of a huge drift.
Polaris plucked him from the snow.
"Kalin is outdone!" gasped the Sardanian. "Thou, my brother, and the Lady Rose must go forward and leave me. On to the north, O brother! Kalin dieth!"
"Not so, Kalin," answered Polaris. "My breath will leave my body before I desert my brother. Didst thou falter in Sardanes, when all were against the strangers? And shall Polaris desert thee now?"
"But for the lady's sake, thou must," persisted Kalin. "Thou mayest not fail her, and delay is death."
"She would not buy even her life at such a price, O Kalin," said Polaris. "Together we will fare to the north, or together will we keep eternal watch here in the snows."
Unheedful of the protests of the priest, he carried him to the sledge and rearranged the load on the vehicle, making a place for Kalin at the rear behind the girl. Thus they took up again the tale of the journey, but more slowly than they had yet traveled, the load taxing the powers of the diminishing team-pack.
Once broken in the pride of his endurance, the priest rapidly lost hold on himself, and his vitality seemed to ooze from him with the passing hours. At the second stop after Polaris had made a place for him on the sledge the son of the snows discovered that one of his legs, which seemed to be paralyzed, was frozen from foot to knee; yet Kalin did not seem to know it.
At the close of a particularly trying march—their going no longer could be called a dash—Polaris made their camp at the sheltered side of one of the hummocks of rock and ice with which the land was sprinkled and all of them, dogs and humans, slumbered wearily for many hours.
Polaris awoke with a strange weight at his threat. It was the ilium necklace of Kalin, in which glimmered the red stones. He held it up for an instant in wonder at its presence there and then sprang to the priest's sleeping parka.
It was empty. Kalin was not in the camp!