Polaris and the Goddess Glorian

by Charles B. Stilson

With the same ceaseless industry that had built the tunnel so swiftly, they then had attacked the face of the wall with chisels and sledges, cutting in at intervals of about ten feet. This had been difficult work and perilous. The rock of the wall was adamant-hard. However, by attacking the cement in which the stones were set, the miners had been able to remove numbers of the great blocks entire, rolling them by dint of herculean effort across the gallery and into cavities made to receive them.

In that work had been the danger. Eight men had been crushed under falling fragments—first toll of Ruthar in the warfare.

The excavations had been carried into the foundation of the wall a matter of fifteen feet when Everson arrived. He at once ordered that work stopped. Remained only the placing of the explosive. That he superintended in person.

Bar by bar—for the lieutenant would suffer no man to carry more than one of old Zenas's patty-cakes at a time—and with extreme care, the melinite was borne in through the tunnel and packed in the cavities in the wall. The geologist's workshop had turned out a plenty of the stuff, and it was used without stint. Everson judged that he placed nearly two tons of the explosive in each of the six chambers under the wall.

Banks of loose, dry earth were piled about the melinite charges; Everson laid his wires, and his workmen then filled the cavities with fragments of the rock taken from the wall.

Still further to retard the release of the gases when the charges should be set off, the lieutenant set his men to wall up the openings to the chambers, using heavy rocks and cement, having done which, they filled in the cross-arm of the "T" with earth and fragments of stone, tamping all in firmly.

Very workmanlike was the finished task over which Everson nodded his approval and told his grimy legion, "Well done."

During all the progress of the labor the patrols of Bel-Ar rode to and fro along the wall, and never guessed that sixty feet below them in the rock their enemies were planting the fearful seeds that would put forth the red flower of war.

It was midnight of the third day after the gathering of the zinds in the temple of Glorian at Zele-omaz, when Everson walked out of the tunnel for the last time, his wires laid, his batteries ready. Retiring to one of the shelters which had been built in the forest, the lieutenant threw himself on a couch for a few brief hours of sleep.

Five hours later one of his engineers awakened him and told him that the zinds of Ruthar with a great host had gone into camp for the night along the roadway ten miles back from the wall, and that the levies of the upper hills, the light-armed archers, slingers and javelin men, were pouring into the vast camp which had been prepared nearby in the forest.