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. "Here we may stay now until we be old and gray-headed, Zalos," said Patrymion ruefully. "There can be no more fighting worth the telling. They cannot come at us. A puny girl could withstand them all here." He peered over the rock. "Aye, they know it, the rogues, and are going. 'Twill be but poor sport here." To himself he added: "I know a better, even though it lasteth but a few moments. What's the odds?" Carried away by the love of fighting, a madness seemed to seize the lad. He let fall the shield of Minos, caught Zalos's ax from his hand, and before any man could hinder, he leaped over the rock. "'Tis a pretty weapon," he called back over his shoulder to the hunter, and shook the ax aloft. "I will use it well." He ran out across the plateau singing loudly. Unmindful of the danger, the hunter captain clambered over the rock to follow him. It was too late. For an instant Zalos saw the lad outlined clearly in the glare from the fire on the plateau, swinging the great ax with both hands. Then the spearsmen closed in on him from all sides. Four men he felled with four lightning strokes, and went down, dying as he had lived, with careless song on his lips, making a jest of death itself.