Minos of Sardanes

by Charles B. Stilson

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

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

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

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

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

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

Up sprang the lad with a loud laugh.

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

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

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