A short way from the Judgment House, on the slopes of Mount Latmos, stood the palace of the kings of Sardanes, a temple-like structure, reared of the green stone from the cliff quarries and faced with lofty pillars of white marble. Thither Minos walked slowly, pondering much. One of his household, a lad of some eighteen years, who had tarried when the people fled from the hall, now followed his master. As they ascended the path through the great trees toward the royal hill, a scrap of conversation drifted to the ears of the king from the porch of the stone cottage of one of the tillers of the soil. "The world hath rocked. Cold enters the valley. The dread high priest threateneth the king. What will the outcome be?" A woman's voice asked the question. A man made answer: "Hephaistos ruleth the priests. Analos and fear rule the people. What can the king do?" Minos smiled. What, indeed? Yet there were some things that he could and _would_ do. A booming stroke of the huge drum echoed through the valley, telling that the day was done, and that one faithful soul had not forsaken its post. The drum swung between two pillars in the center of the Hall of Judgment. Near to it was a vase of nearly the height of a man. In the bottom of the vase was drilled a tiny hole. The vase was filled with water from the holy River Ukranis. Usually a lad watched it. When the water had seeped away and the vase was emptied, a process that consumed some ten hours, it was the duty of the watcher to smite a blow on the drum and to refill the vase. Then another took up the vigil. So the Sardanians kept rude reckoning of time. When Minos reached his home he sent the lad to fetch parchment, brush, and pigment. By the flaring light of a torch he wrote: To the Lady Memene, greeting: Though the syllana be a flower little in accord with thy thought, yet when the hour shall strike that thou hast need for a friend who will do and dare all things, wear one on thy gown. Folding his message, unsigned, the king called the lad. "Alternes, take thou this parchment to the hall of the Lord Karnaon," he directed. "Give it into the hand of the Lady Memene, and to no other. On thy way thither send to me Zalos and three of his men. Then seek thou thy rest." Minos seated himself on the topmost step of the palace portico and leaned his head against a pillar. His eyes roved across the shadowy valley, where the flickering light of the mountain moons mingled with the cold, pale radiance of the Antarctic stars. He scarcely saw it. He had fallen into a reverie. Ill had gone the love-making of this king. Never, since the days when they had played together as children, had the Lady Memene given him one word of love, one single glance in which a lover might read joy. Ah, those far, fair days of childhood! Then he had been but the younger brother of the man who would be king. She had been kind then.