Booming up from the depths, his answer came--a mighty diapason from the throat of the crater that seemed to carry with it every chord of nature's tonal gamut. As if the hammer of Hephaistos, indeed, had smitten, the solid rock beneath him quivered to a terrific shock from the bowels of the earth. Almost jarred from his foothold, the man, by a quick spring backward, saved himself from toppling into the fiery funnel. Crawling on hands and knees, he approached the brink of the ledge again, and there lay flat. His eyeballs bulged and his senses swam when he gazed downward. He saw the fire-fretted sides of the giant crater swept free of all their clouding vapors, every glittering vein, every projection, every detail of their many strata, revealed in startling clearness by a blinding flood of light. He saw the fire-lake itself surge upward in its white-hot sheath. Up, up the sheer declivity of the crater it crept. As it came, for yards above it the rocks glowed red. Another tremendous shock swayed the ledge where the priest lay. Masses of rock, reft from the precipitous walls near the mountain summit, hurtled past him down the chasm. Again the molten lava heaved up a great wave. Never in all the traditions of Sardanes had the fires of the Gateway leaped so far! From the center of that swirling maelstrom there arose a cone twenty feet high. It opened with a shriek as of a legion of devils released, and an appalling pillar of blue flame shot up from it and stood like a plume. Although the highest reach of the flame was a full hundred feet below him, the blast of the heat was like to burst the veins of the watching priest. His very beard curled in it. Springing to his feet, Analos went back to the darkness of the passage that led to the terraces on the lower slope. Already it was hot to suffocation in the winding corridor. Down the spirals ahead of him Analos heard the squealing of his affrighted priests as they scurried for the open. But Analos quaked not. He strode forth from the lofty arch of the portal and trod the upper terrace with the step of a master conqueror. He glanced up the outer acclivity of the mountain. He saw its peak ablaze with a crown of fire against the gloom of the Antarctic night--a crown which shone there for the first time since man had made history in the valley of Sardanes. He drew a deep breath, a breath of triumph and exaltation. "Master, thy sign is sent!" he cried. With head held high, Analos passed down the fire-lighted terraces. As he went, he heard through the red twilight of the valley cries of wonder and heart-rending wails of fear. * * * * *