"Welcome, Chloran, to the Gateway to the Future," cried Kalin. But Chloran heard him not. The powerful drug in the wine bound his senses. His head fell forward. At a sign from Kalin the two priests shoved the shield into the chute. Down the polished way it whirled, and shot out into the fiery rift. Polaris clung at the brink of the little ledge and strained his eyes out into the terrible, fire-shot chasm to watch the fall. With its living burden the shield whirled down through the curling vapors, straight toward the molten caldron that tossed and roared in the funnel. In a breath it had fallen so far that it looked like a toy fluttering above the flames. Then it was gone. So intense was the heat into which it fell that it seemed to dissolve into vapor before it ever touched the surface. A long, yellow tongue of flame shot up from the surface of the lake. Polaris turned to the ledge. The priests had extinguished the torches and disappeared. Presently Kalin came forth from his chapel and called to him. With one more glance into the depths of the sinister pit, he descended from his perch in the rock and joined the priest. They proceeded toward the chapel. As Polaris passed the chute he stumbled. His feet shot from under him and down on his back he fell on the polished stone, and he, too, went whizzing head first down the way that Chloran, son of Sardon, had taken into the terrible fire-pit of Hephaistos! Head first he shot down. As he slid by a mighty effort he turned over in the chute and thrust out his arms. The chute was about the width of a man's height. Polaris was exceptionally broad of shoulder, and his arms were long, so that his hands rubbed the sides of the chute. Just as his head thrust over the brink of the awful chasm his hands found holds at either side of the chute. Whoever had cut the way in the rock in the long ago had left, almost at the very edge, a cleft in each side that was large enough for hand-grip. Very probably they were the holds by which the artisans steadied themselves while they hewed and polished the stone of the chute. In those clefts the groping fingers of Polaris caught and held. The impetus of his body would have torn away the hold of a man less splendidly muscled than the son of the snows; but with a mighty wrench of his arms he stayed his progress and hung with head projected over the brink of the pit. All in an instant it happened, and with no noise; for Polaris, fearful as was his plight, did not cry out, and neither did Kalin, who saw him fall. From out of the blackness that was behind him Polaris heard the priest gasp, and then for a moment all was silence but for the roaring of the fires far below. Kalin crept to the brink of the precipice and peered over. Below him he saw the head of Polaris.