Out of the gloom ahead of him came suddenly an ear-splitting rattling, followed by a hiss and a weird moaning that caused the hair at the nape of his neck to stiffen. Immediately the place was in echo to a full throated, hideous chorus, that froze the blood in the veins of the boldest Sardanian who heard it.
Cowering, and with staring eyeballs, the members of the searching party saw their leader shaken in his tracks, apparently crumpled up by an unseen force and whirled from them—out over the abyss of fire. One glimpse only they caught of his flying body, dark against the ruddy glow of the steam and smoke from the crater heart. For an instant the great hollow of the funnel rang with his agonized shrieks as he shot downward, and he was gone.
Only Polaris saw the end. Shaken with horror, he did not neglect to turn to his advantage the accident; for accident it was. As the party of Garlanes came on, he had smitten the wall at his side with the shafts of the spears he carried, and had given vent at the same time to a deep-chested groan. He did not know that the seven of the pack had slunk back on his trail, and crouched at the foot of the rock, ready for battle. Their echoing challenge to the foe startled him almost as much as it did the Sardanians.
The young leader, in the face of that blast of clamor, had started so violently that he struck his shins against the shield of wood at his feet, collapsed into it, and was whirled down the terrible chute to instant death.
Again the Sardanians proved their innate courage. Their companion torn from them and cast to a fate that they could neither see nor explain, his death-shrieks ringing in their ears, they did not break or give back. They stood fast and made ready to advance. From the gloom in front the menacing snarling of the dogs swelled in volume. It was quieted again when spoke the voice of the dreaded stranger from the snows.
"Back, ye men of Sardanes!" thundered Polaris from the height. "Back, ere the fate of him who hath but now passed the gateway be your fate! Back, and let the servant of Hephaistos and the strangers depart from the land in peace. Here along the narrow way lie many sorts of death!"
Again he struck on the wall with the sheaf of spears.
"Now one of you," shouted Garlanes, "haste and summon the Prince Minos and the others. Tell them that here the snow-dweller and his devils hold the path, and that with them will be the Rose maiden and the priest. Haste!"
One of the Sardanians set off along the ledge, making what haste he dared. Garlanes himself advanced to the front. In the shifting light from the chasm he found the opening to the chute, and warned his men around it.