No more was battle done on the steep slope of Mount Latmos. Assured that Minos and his men were holed in where they might not come at them, the fighting men of the priest went up against the cave no more. Although they must have known that the treasure cave was provisioned and watered so abundantly that it would keep its small garrison for many months, they did not give up their siege entirely. That was discovered when one of the hunters thought to go forth by stealth in the slumber hours, and pay a visit to his wife and children at his home in the valley. Hardly was he over the ledge of the plateau when men seized him in the dusk. His comrades in the cave above heard him scream out once and twice, and then the minions of Analos cut his throat. On their part, the hunters maintained a guard of one man at all hours, who sat behind the boulder in the passageway. Late in the fourth day that they had been immured in the mountainside, Dukulon, one of Zalos's men, as he stood his turn at guard, heard a rapping at the mouth of the pass as one who tapped gently on the wall with a stone. "Who cometh?" he hailed. "_Sh_--it is I, Alternes," came the whispered answer. "I would have speech with Minos the King." Minos came and bade the lad enter the cave. He wriggled slowly, and with not a few groans, through the passage, and was helped over the rock. When they took him to the light, they found that he was in evil case. Most of his clothing had been torn from him, and he was bruised and with dried blood on his flesh. "They have hunted me in the hills like a goat," he gasped, as he bent to kiss the hand of his master. "Thy palace is a dismal ruin, O king. Thy servants are scattered or slain. The stone with thy name on it has been cast down from above thy seat in the Judgment House. Even thy throne they toppled from its place and shattered." The king turned from him sorrowfully. The hunters gathered round, and, as they tended the hurts of the lad, they sought news from him of their families. "I can tell you naught," he said wearily, "but I believe that every soul in the valley that stood faithful to the king hath been sent to Hephaistos. The dead lie unburned in rows on the upper terraces of the Gateway. For in the hill the fires of the god do wax so mighty that none, not even his own priests, dares to come near to them. All upper Sardanes is snow and ice. Ten of the great moons have gone dark, and as they die the cold cometh on apace." Then Alternes turned his face to the wall on the couch of skins where they had laid him, and slept long and well. One more attempt Analos made to bring Minos to his will. The priest sent a delegation of all the lords of the valley to the cave-mouth. Minos came and talked with them over the fallen rock. To his side came the Lady Memene and leaned upon the stone, her chin upon her hands. Ukalles, now an outcast from his home on Tanos in upper Sardanes, was spokesman for the nobles.