Many leagues from the
base of its peak the ground began to rise in brown and rugged hillocks,
from which sprang the holy Mountain itself, a white and dazzling point
that soared full twenty thousand feet into the heavens.
Yes, and there upon the nether lip of its crater stood the gigantic
pillar, surmounted by a yet more gigantic loop of virgin rock, whereof
the blackness stood out grimly against the blue of the sky beyond and
the blinding snow beneath.
We gazed at it with awe, as well we might, this beacon of our hopes that
for aught we knew might also prove their monument, feeling even then
that yonder our fate would declare itself. I noted further that all
those with us did it reverence by bowing their heads as they caught
sight of the peak, and by laying the first finger of the right hand
across the first finger of the left, a gesture, as we afterwards
discovered, designed to avert its evil influence. Yes, even Simbri
bowed, a yielding to inherited superstition of which I should scarcely
have suspected him.
"Have you ever journeyed to that Mountain?" asked Leo of him.
Simbri shook his head and answered evasively.
"The people of the Plain do not set foot upon the Mountain. Among its
slopes beyond the river which washes them, live hordes of brave and most
savage men, with whom we are oftentimes at war; for when they are hungry
they raid our cattle and our crops.
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