The sensation of the long swinging upward movement was unutterably
alien to anything in life or in dreams, and the sheer height above
and the momently-deepening chasm below were presences contending for
possession.
Strange fragrance stole from gum and bark of the decreasing
vegetation. Dislodged stones rolled bounding from rock to rock into
the abyss. To right and left the way went. There was not even the
friendly beacon of the summit to beckon them. It seemed to St.
George that their whole safety lay in motion, that a moment's
cessation from the advance would hurl them all down the sides of the
declivity. Since the ascent began he had not ceased to look down;
and now as they rose free of the tree-tops that clothed the base of
the mountain he could see across the plain, and beyond the bounding
embankment of the island to the dark waste of the sea. Somewhere out
there _The Aloha_ was rocking. Somewhere, away to the northwest, the
lights of New York harbour shone. _Did_ they, St. George wondered
vaguely; and, when he went back, how would they look to him? It
seemed to him in some indeterminate fashion that when he saw them
again there would be new lines and sides of beauty which he had
never suspected, and as if all the world would be changed, included
in this new world that he had found.
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