What, St. George thought as the way seemed to
lengthen before them, what if there were no end? What if this were
some gigantic trick of Destiny to keep him for the rest of his life
in mid-air, ceaselessly toiling up, a latter-day Sisyphus, in a
palanquin? He had dreamed of stairs in the darkness which men
mounted and found to have no summits, and suppose this were such a
stair? Suppose, among these marvels that were related to his dreams,
he had, as it were, tossed a ball of twine in the air and, like the
Indian jugglers, climbed it? Suppose he had built a castle in the
clouds and tenanted it with Olivia, and were now foolhardily
attempting to scale the air? Ah well, he settled it contentedly,
better so. For this divine jugglery comes once into every life, and
one must climb to the castle with madness and singing if he would
attain to the temples that lie on the castle-plain.
Gradually, as they approached the summit, the ascent became less
precipitous. As they neared the cone their way lay over a kind of
natural fosse at the cone's base; and, although the mountain did not
reach the level of perpetual snow, yet an occasional cool breath
from the dark told where in some natural cavern snow had lain
undisturbed since the unremembered eruption of the sullen, volcanic
peak.
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