First to yield was the holy river Ukranis. Ice bound its sources until it became a mere streamlet, soon paralyzed by the cold into a glittering thread. A gray rime crept over the green velvet of the grass, and a white pall covered it softly. The blue roses withered and fell. The grain in the fields ceased to grow and lay lifeless. Bushes and shrubs died. The giant trees shed their faded foliage, their roots strangled in the chill of death, their palsied branches brittle and breaking down under a weight of snow. The bright birds of many hues that had flashed back and forth through the forest glades and lanes fluttered to the ground with mournful cries and died. The hum of insect life was stilled. On the hillsides, the little brown rabbits shivered in their burrows, nestled together and slept forever. With all of these, there passed a hundred things, animate and inanimate, that had their living like in no other spot on the whole earth. Only man and his closest companions lingered. At the foot of the terraced hill of Hephaistos all of Sardanes that still lived were gathered--all, with the exception of Minos the king and his company on the hill of Latmos. At the north end of the valley, with their backs to the last of the flaming hills and their faces towards the encroaching snows, the Sardanians pitched a great camp. Some few small houses that once had been those of the tillers of the fields, were occupied by the lords and their families. The people, nearly two thousand of them, camped on the ground with blankets and furs and some articles of their wooden household furniture, each little family in its own group. Against the creeping white enemy that had invaded the valley, they set a barrier of flame. A hundred axmen, working in shifts, with as many ponies, cut and dragged trees from near-by hillsides. Hour after hour they piled the fires with wood from the hymanan forests, and kept a blazing ring around the camp. When one party was wearied, another took up the work. So, with hope departing, they kept life in their bodies for a few days. To that end of the valley were brought all of the small horses in the kingdom, to the number of several hundreds. There was not enough fodder to maintain the poor animals for long, and they died by the score. The slopes of the Gateway swarmed with wild goats, driven thither with all the rest by the sinister white invader that had crept to their loftiest haunts in the cliffs, and had cut them off from their food supplies. They and the horses were all that remained of animal life in Sardanes, except the dogs of Minos on Latmos. Bitter as was the exigency, Analos the priest would not suffer the people to ascend to the terraces of the Gateway, where was still some warmth from within the hill. So strong was the grip of their superstitions and his threats, that, shivering, facing death and desperate, the people still heeded and obeyed him.