THE HUMBLING OF MINOS
It was no part of Polaris's program to take part in a hand-to-hand fight with the pursuers. There were seven of them remaining, and with nothing but his own safety at stake, he might have been confident of the issue; but he did not dare, under the circumstances, to take the risk of the encounter.
When he saw that a charge might be delayed no longer, he turned and ran swiftly along the curve of the ledge, the dogs racing with him. He, the fleetest of runners, now went at top speed. When he stopped, some hundred and fifty feet away, Garlanes and his men had barely rounded the bulge of rock to the wider part of the path.
They charged the neck of the way, and, finding the way widen, where there was nothing to take cover behind, they quite naturally hesitated for the next move of their foe.
That move came quickly. Garlanes, in the lead, heard something sing past his ear like an angry bee. The man next behind him felt something strike him over the heart, and he threw up his hands and crumpled to the floor. The walls of the mighty tunnel flung back a crashing echo to the sharp report of the rifle. Kneeling close to the wall, peering through the fitful light, Polaris watched the effect of his shot.
Vainly he hoped that superstition would come to his aid and hold the Sardanians back from the carnage. They were dismayed. By the intermittent flares of garish light from the throat of the volcano, Polaris could see their consternation in their faces and gestures; but he had not stopped them.
After a momentary examination of the body of their comrade, they came on, but slowly.
With loud cries of encouragement, Prince Minos and his men, summoned by the messenger from Garlanes, poured around the corner of the rock, and the entire body came on apace.
Again Polaris took up the retreat, running swiftly, and keeping well out of the range of the spear casting. Presently when he deemed that he must be nearly half-way around the rim of the crater, he came to another narrower part of the pathway where a large rock lay behind which he could crouch. There he decided to make his stand, and to retreat no farther until the summons of Kalin should tell him that the sledge was clear of the tunnel.
He refilled the magazine of the rifle, and waiting calmly for the flickering light to make his aim sure, he began methodically to pick off the foremost pursuers, making every bullet count. Under the pitiless accuracy of his fire, the Sardanians lagged uncertainly, but always they crept nearer.
Six times had the brown rifle sent its death unseen, almost unfelt, across the arc of the crater rim, when there was a stir among the dogs behind the marksman, a touch on his shoulder, a voice in his ear.
"Come, brother, all is ready. Haste thee before they close in!" called Kalin.
Not a score of yards farther they came to a passage in the wall, or, rather, a fissure through it, which seemed to have been floored by the hand of man at some distant time. It led at right angles from the crater shelf. As Polaris looked into it he could see that it was lighted dimly by the light of day. It was barely wide enough for the passage of the sledge, and it so twisted in the rock that it had been a slow and difficult task for the priest to drive the ponies through.
Circumstance willed that they were not to pass the tunnel without further mishap and bloodshed.
Slowly the enemy had crept up. When Kalin and Polaris broke cover and dashed for the mouth of the tunnel, the foremost of the Sardanians was only a short spear-throw behind. In the momentary pause at the mouth of the tunnel, men and dogs were bunched, and offered a fair target to the Sardanians leaping along the ledge.
With a scream of pain and rage, the dog Pallas leaped thrice her height from the floor and fell, writhing in her death agonies. A spear had penetrated behind the poor brute's shoulder, nearly piercing the body through.
Her death wail was drowned in the terrible challenge that came from the throats of the pack, and the cry of anger that rose from the lips of her master. Kalin stood alone at the mouth of the narrow way, holding the rifle that had been thrust into his hands. In the midst of his leaping, snarling dogs, Polaris, raging like a demon at the slaughter of his old playmate and servant, threw himself back into the teeth of the charge of Minos's men.
Clutching a heavy spear in his right hand, and whirling it like a toy, and with a revolver in his left, he swept down the ledge, thrusting and firing. Around him the six dogs of the pack fought after their own fashion, rending and snapping like devils.
In the face of that attack the Sardanians shrank aghast.
Thirty feet or more back along the pathway Polaris fought blindly for vengeance before his reason returned to him. In front of him the Sardanians were huddled in the path, backing away and obstructed in their flight by those behind who were pushing forward, under the threats and commands of Minos, the Prince.
Polaris's brain cleared. He heard the voice of Kalin calling to him to return. He turned and raced swiftly to the tunnel, over the bodies of the dead. Behind him the rush of pursuit gathered and came on again.
Through the tunnel they raced, dogs and men, and came out into the sunlight, which shone on crags and boulders and bare earth.
"Quickly, now; the rocking stone—tip it over!" gasped the priest.
Where the tunnel ended was its narrowest point. A man might reach out and touch both walls. On the rock above the entrance beetled what Kalin called the "rocking stone." It was an enormous boulder, the fang of some glacial jaw in the primeval, or a fragment spat from the maw of the volcano. Where it had come to rest, at the very verge of the tunnel entrance, it was balanced. So nice was its adjustment on its natural pedestal that the breath of a strong breeze caused it to sway, or rock gently; the hand of a strong man might increase the oscillation greatly.
"Tip it over!" gasped Kalin, pointing with his hand.
A glance told Polaris his purpose. In the passage swelled the clamor of pursuit. He sprang up the rocks, set his powerful shoulder under the belly of the immense stone, and shoved with all his strength.
Over swayed the stone—farther than it had ever swayed before in all the centuries that it had stood there. The solid rock of its foundation grated and crumbled. Over it swung but not far enough to fall. To the straining man, whole minutes seemed to be passing as the stone hung; then, despite his utmost effort, it shuddered—and swung back!
Polaris turned and set his broad back to the surface of the stone as it oscillated. He waited until its recoil swing was completed, and, as it again inclined toward the fissure, he straightened his doubled legs and put forth all the power in his magnificent muscles.
He heard the roaring of the leaping blood in his ears. He heard the uneasy crumbling of the rock at his feet. He shut his eyes and strained grimly—triumphantly! The resistance ceased, and he threw himself on his side to avoid falling. The huge boulder pitched into the tunnel, grinding and crashing, and settled its weight of tons squarely across the passage.
As it went down, there was a flash of white beneath it, and the body of a tall man shot through the portals that were closing forever, and fell on his face on the slope.
It was Minos the Prince! Outdistancing all his men, he had dashed through the passage, and hurled himself at the daylight not one second too soon to escape being crushed under the fall of the rocking stone. Behind his flying heels it closed down, grimly and solidly, splintering the walls at either side to make way for itself. When it rested on the floor of the crevice it completely filled the entrance. Not a squirrel could have clambered through.
Dully through the wall of rock penetrated the dismayed clamor of the Sardanians in the passage, and the muted sound of their spears smiting on the stone. No efforts of theirs could so much as shake the boulder. Nothing short of giant powder would dislodge it.
Desperate at his plight, made mad with fury, or surpassingly daring was Minos the Prince, for he picked himself up with a shout and charged headlong at the men and dogs who confronted him.
"This task to me brother," shouted Polaris to Kalin, who lifted spear to defend himself. Polaris had sprung down from the pedestal of the rocking stone, and he leaped unhesitatingly into the path of Minos.
With lightning swiftness he caught a grip on the haft of the spear which the prince whirled up to pierce him. For a moment the two men stood tense, with upstretched arms, battling fiercely, but without motion, for the mastery of the weapon. Then Polaris widened his grip on the shaft and twisted it sharply from his antagonist's grasp.
They stood breathing deeply, and Polaris cast the spear away, at the same time sternly ordering off the dogs which would have rushed on Minos.
"A trick," said Minos with a smile, glancing at his empty hands. "Another trick, O clever stranger! Now try a fall with Minos, where tricks will not avail." He flung his arms around Polaris.
His grip was of steel. In all Sardanes the "smiling prince" was known as the strongest man. Once, for a wager, he had trussed the legs of a full grown pony, and had carried it on his shoulders unaided, from the river to the Judgement House.
Round about Polaris his long legs tightened, and he tugged upward mightily, in an effort to tear his antagonist from his foothold and hurl him down. He would have plucked an ordinary man from the earth like a toy, but he was not pitted against an ordinary man. He was the strongest man in Sardanes, but Sardanes was small, and her strong men few. Polaris was perhaps the strongest man in the world.
He stood firm. Not only that, but he thrust his hands upwards, gripping the prince in the armpits, and slowly straightened his arms, despite the utmost effort of the struggling prince to pinion them to his sides. Strain as Minos might, he could not break that grip beneath his shoulders.
Slowly, very slowly, Polaris straightened his arms. As he did so, he bent his hands in from the wrists, exerting an ever increasing pressure at each side of Minos's broad chest. To his own intense astonishment, the prince, whom no man ever had mastered, felt his foothold growing insecure, felt his ribs slowly curving in and his breathing growing short and painful, felt his mighty arms slipping.
In vain he straightened up to his towering height and shook his sweep of shoulders. His terrible grip was broken.
Polaris suddenly loosed his hold, passed his arms up within those of the prince, and brought them down with elbows bended, freeing himself entirely. He caught Minos by the wrists, and exerting a strength that almost crushed the bones, he pressed downward swiftly and relentlessly.
The Prince of Sardanes knelt on the bare rock at the feet of the son of the snows.
No word had been spoken. Polaris let fall his enemy's wrists, and pointed along the mountainside toward the pass that led into the valley.
"Yonder lieth thy way, back to Sardanes, prince," he said gently. "Go back to thy people and rule them wisely, O Minos. Seek not to follow us. We go hence on a far journey, and will not be denied or turned. As to the strife that hath arisen, no man can regret it more than I. Farewell."
Minos answered not, and Polaris turned to the girl and the priest. He saw that all was in readiness for their going. Tethered to a tree below them in the mountain's belt of green were the snorting ponies. He threw out his arm in a sweeping gesture. "The way to the north is open," he said. "Let us be going."