Polaris of the Snows

by Charles B. Stilson

Head first he shot down. As he slid by a mighty effort he turned over in the chute and thrust out his arms. The chute was about the width of a man's height. Polaris was exceptionally broad of shoulder, and his arms were long, so that his hands rubbed the sides of the chute.

Just as his head thrust over the brink of the awful chasm his hands found holds at either side of the chute. Whoever had cut the way in the rock in the long ago had left, almost at the very edge, a cleft in each side that was large enough for hand-grip. Very probably they were the holds by which the artisans steadied themselves while they hewed and polished the stone of the chute.

In those clefts the groping fingers of Polaris caught and held. The impetus of his body would have torn away the hold of a man less splendidly muscled than the son of the snows; but with a mighty wrench of his arms he stayed his progress and hung with head projected over the brink of the pit.

All in an instant it happened, and with no noise; for Polaris, fearful as was his plight, did not cry out, and neither did Kalin, who saw him fall. From out of the blackness that was behind him Polaris heard the priest gasp, and then for a moment all was silence but for the roaring of the fires far below.

Kalin crept to the brink of the precipice and peered over. Below him he saw the head of Polaris.

"Now," he muttered to himself, but not so low that Polaris could not hear him—"Now, I think it were well perhaps for Sardanes, and especially well for the Prince Helicon, did I let this stranger go on his way to Hephaistos. Nay, but he is a brave man, and I have come to like him strangely, and I cannot.

"Ho, thou, Polaris of the Snows, canst hold that grip of thine while I fetch rope?" he called aloud.

"Aye, Kalin the priest, I can hold for many minutes if so be thou art minded to aid me," answered Polaris grimly. "If thou art not, then I go hence through this strange gate of thine."

"Hold, then," said the priest, and hurried to the chapel, marveling at the hardihood of the man, who hung on the brink of death, and who cried not for aid or mercy.

Back he came in a moment with a stout rope and cast the loop of it over Polaris's head. Then he stepped back, braced his feet against the rocky floor, and, exerting a strength whereof his slender frame did not seem capable, he dragged Polaris from his perilous resting-place.