" But at all
events St. George's prophecy was fulfilled: From the top of Mount
Khalak they were watching the moon rise. St. George, however, was
not yet in the company whose image had pleasantly besieged him when
he had prophesied. He turned impatiently to the palace. Jarvo,
resting on the stones where he had sunk down, signaled them to go
on, and the two needed no second bidding. They set off briskly
across the plateau, Amory looking about him with eager curiosity,
St. George on the crest of his divine expectancy.
The palace was set on the west of the gentle slope to which the
mountain-top had been artificially leveled. The terrace led up on
three sides from the marge of the height to the great portals. Over
everything hung that imponderable essence that was clearer and purer
than any light--"better than any light that ever shone." In its
glamourie, with that far ocean background, the palace of pale stone
looked unearthly, a sky thing, with ramparts of air. The principle
of the builders seemed not to have been the ancient dictum that
"mass alone is admirable," for the great pile was shaped, with
beauty of unknown line, in three enormous cylinders, one rising from
another, the last magnificently curved to a huge dome on whose
summit burned with inconceivable brilliance the light which had been
a beacon to the longing eyes turned toward it from the deck of _The
Aloha_.
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