-by upon the road to Med, there was nothing
remarkable in the aspect of the three companions. All that was
remarkable was the adventure upon which they were bound, and nobody
could possibly have guessed that.

Almost a mile lay between them and the point where the ascent of
the mountain was to be begun. The road which they were taking
followed at the foot of the embankment which girt the island, and it
led them at last to a stretch of arbourescent heath, piled with
black basaltic rocks. Here, where the light was dim like the glow
from light reflected upon low clouds, they took their way among
great branching cacti and nameless plants that caught at their
ankles. A strange odour rose from the earth, mineral, metallic, and
the air was thick with particles stirred by their feet and more
resembling ashes than dust. This was a waste place of the island,
and if one were to lift a handful of the soil, St. George thought,
it was very likely that one might detect its elements; as, here the
dust of a temple, here of a book, here a tomb and here a sacrifice.
He felt himself near the earth, in its making. He looked away to the
sugar-loaf cone of the mountain risen against the star-lit sky.
Above its fortress-like bulk with circular ramparts burned the clear
beacon of the light on the king's palace. As he saw the light, St.
George knew himself not only near the earth but at one with the very
currents of the air, partaker of now a hope, now a task, now a
spell, and now a memory. It was as if love had made him one with the
dust of dead cities and with their eternal spiritual effluence.

At length they crossed the broad avenue that led from the
Eurychorus to Melita, and struck into the road that skirted the
mountain; and where a thicket of trees flung bold branches across
the way, three figures rose from the ground before them, and Akko
stepped forward and saluted, his white teeth gleaming. Immediately
Jarvo led the way through a strip of underbrush at the base of the
mountain, and they emerged in a glade where the light hardly
penetrated.

Here were distinguishable the palanquins in which the ascent was to
be made. These were like long baskets, upborne by a pole of great
flexibility broadening to a wider support beneath the body of the
basket and provided with rubber straps through which the arms were
passed. When St. George and Amory were seated, Jarvo spoke
hesitatingly:

"We must bandage your eyes, adon," he said.

"Oh real