of
a schoolboy. "Come up. You'll be late for dinner."

The two great elms stood so close together that there was scarcely a
yard anywhere, and in some places not more than a foot, between them.
Thus occasional branches and even bosses and boles formed a series of
footholds that almost amounted to a rude natural ladder. They must, I
supposed, have been some sport of growth, Siamese twins of vegetation.

Why we did it I cannot think; perhaps, as I have said, the mystery of
the waste and dark had brought out and made primary something wholly
mystical in Basil's supremacy. But we only felt that there was a giant's
staircase going somewhere, perhaps to the stars; and the victorious
voice above called to us out of heaven. We hoisted ourselves up after
him.

Half-way up some cold tongue of the night air struck and sobered me
suddenly. The hypnotism of the madman above fell from me, and I saw the
whole map of our silly actions as clearly as if it were printed. I saw
three modern men in black coats who had begun with a perfectly sensible
suspicion of a doubtful adventurer and who had ended, God knows how,
half-way up a naked tree on a naked moorland, far from that adventurer
and all his works, that adventurer who was at that moment, in all
probability, laughing at us in some dirty Soho restaurant. He had plenty
to laugh at us about, and no doubt he was laughing his loudest; but when
I thought what his laughter would be if he knew where we were at that
moment, I nearly let go of the tree and fell.

"Swinburne," said Rupert suddenly, from above, "what are we doing? Let's
get down again," and by the mere sound of his voice I knew that he too
felt the shock of wakening to reality.

"We can't leave poor Basil," I said. "Can't you call to him or get hold
of him by the leg?"

"He's too far ahead," answered Rupert; "he's nearly at the top of the
beastly thing. Looking for Lieutenant Keith in the rooks' nests, I
suppose."

We were ourselves by this time far on our frantic vertical journey. The
mighty trunks were beginning to sway and shake slightly in the wind.
Then I looked down and saw something which made me feel that we were far
from the world in a sense and to a degree that I cannot easily describe.
I saw that the almost straight lines of the tall elm trees diminished a
little in perspective as they fell. I was used to seeing parallel lines
taper towards the sky. But to see them taper towards the earth made me
feel lost in