find much more to say.

Then they went on, scaling that invisible way, with the twinkling
feet of the carriers drawing upward like a thread of thin gold which
they were to climb. 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. Then came a breath of over-powering sweetness from some secret
thicket, and something was struck from the feet of the bearers that
was like white pumice gravel. St. George no longer looked downward;
the plain and the waste of the sea were in a forgotten limbo, and he
searched eagerly on high for the first rays of the light that marked
the goal of his longing.

Yet he was unprepared when, swerving sharply and skirting an immense
shoulder of rock, Jarvo suddenly emerged upon a broad retaining wall
of stone bordering a smooth, moon-lit terrace extending by shallow
flights of steps to the white doors of the king's palace itself.

As St. George and Amory freed themselves and sprang to their feet
their eyes were drawn to a glory of light shining over the low
parapet which surrounded the terrace.

"Look," cried St. George victoriously, "the moon!"

From the sea the moon was momently growing, like a giant bubble, and
a bright path had issued to the mountain's foot. "See," she wo