He waved his old hand toward the spouting hills, which they were now leaving behind him. "I'd like to study that eruption and write a book on it," he added regretfully. Despite his age, and the long hours he had spent on the bridge he left it with a vigorous springy step as he went below. At racing speed, wherever the way lay clear, the stanch _Minnetonka_ tore forward, her nose of steel pointed straight into the dark, mysterious South, hurling her eight thousand tons through every available gap in the ice flotilla with all the strength of her twenty-one thousand horsepower. Down the seas behind the vessel, faster and ever faster, crept the dawn of a six-months' day. CHAPTER II THE CURSE OF ANALOS On the brink of the ledge of death in the crater of the Gateway to the Future crouched Analos, high priest in Sardanes. Two hundred feet below him in the monstrous funnel of the crater, seethed the lake of undying fires. Billowing vapors wafted from that troubled caldron passed upward beyond him, an endless procession of many-hued wraiths. First mist, smoke and sulfurous gases intermingled, spiraled and coiled in the drafts that blew through the mountain's cone, and passed on to the vent of the enormous flue, three hundred feet above. The rumble and muttering of the raging flames smote his ears continually. Beneath his feet the solid rock of the hollow hill vibrated and trembled. Anon as the wreaths and curtains of vapor shifted and curled, disclosing their furious source, the weird light shone garishly on his red vestments of office. His high-templed, crafty face, above its black beard, turned livid in the glare. It was evident from the tense bearing of the man that he was himself in the grip of an inward fire that threatened to break forth with consuming fury. He ground his teeth, and blood ran from his bitten lips into his beard. "Curse them, O Lord Hephaistos! Curse them, for thy sake and for thy servant's!" he prayed as he prayed many times before. He stretched his arms out over the gasping pit, raised himself on one knee and sent his voice wailing out across the fire-shot depths. "Aye, curse them and spare them not! Curse him that was before me here! May Kalin be accursed! Curse him who now opposeth my will! May Minos be accursed! Curse her who hath flouted me, thy priest! May she be thrice accursed! Curse them all, and for all the years to come! May they know no rest in Sardanes or in the world! May they find no peace in that far place beyond, whither thy gateway leadeth!" Panting for breath, he paused. His writhing features were hideous in the flare from the chasm. Again he tossed his arms wildly. "Come to my aid, Hephaistos!" he screamed. "Aid thou thy servant! Give me a sign, that I may know. A sign, Master, send me a sign!"