"Neither of us will," said St. George with determination. "See here, Jarvo, we are both level-headed. We pledge you our word of honour, in addition, not to dive overboard. Now--lead on."
"It has never been done," said the little brown man with obstinacy, "you will lose your reason, adôn."
"Ah well now, if we do," said St. George, "pitch us over and leave us. Besides, I think we have. Lead on, please."
Against the will of the others, he prevailed. The light oil-skins were placed in the baskets, each of which was shouldered by two men, Jarvo bearing the foremost pole of St. George's palanquin. All the carriers had drawn on long, soft shoes which, perhaps from some preparation in which they had been dipped, glowed with light, illuminating the ground for a little distance at every step.
"Are you ready, adôn?" asked Jarvo and Akko at the same moment.
"Ready!" cried St. George impatiently.
"Ready," said Amory languidly, and added one thought more: "I hope for Chillingworth's sake," he said, "that Frothingham is a notary public. We'll have to have somebody's seal at the bottom of all this copy."
The baskets were lightly lifted. Jarvo gave a sharp command, and all four of the men broke into a rhythmic chant. Jarvo, leading the way, sprang immediately upon the first foothold, where none seemed to be, and without pause to the next. So perfectly were the men trained that it was as if but one set of muscles were inspiring the movements made to the beat of that monotonous measure. In their strong hands the flexible pole seemed to give as their bodies gave, and so lightly did they leap upward that the jar of their alighting was hardly perceptible, as if, as had occurred to St. George as they ascended the lip of the island, gravity were here another matter. So, without pause, save in the rhythm of that strange march music, the remarkable progress was begun.
St. George threw one swift glance upward and looked down, shudderingly. Beetling above them in the great starlight hung the gigantic pile, wall upon wall of rock hewn with such secret foothold that it was a miracle how any living thing could catch and cling to its forbidding surface. Only lifelong practice of the men, who from childhood had been required to make the ascent and whose fathers and fathers' fathers before them had done the same, could have accounted for that catlike ability to cling to the trail where was no trail. The sensation of the long swinging upward movement was unutterably alien to anything in life or in dreams, and the sheer height above and the momently-deepening chasm below were presences contending for possession.