is knees was gone, his ankles
bruised. But he must keep on till he got to the top, or until he fell.

He was fighting on now in a kind of dream, quite apart from all usual
feelings of this world. The earth itself seemed far away, and he was
toiling among vastnesses, himself a giant with colossal frame and huge,
sprawling limbs. It was like a gruesome vision of the night, when
the body is an elusive, stupendous mass that falls into space after a
confused struggle with immensities. It was all mechanical, vague, almost
numb, this effort to overcome a mountain. Yet it was precise and hugely
expert too; for though there was a strange mist on the brain, the body
felt its way with a singular certainty, as might some molluscan dweller
of the sea, sensitive like a plant, intuitive like an animal. Yet at
times it seemed that this vast body overcoming the mountain must let go
its hold and slide away into the darkness of the depths.

Now there was a strange convulsive shiver in every nerve--God have
mercy, the time was come!... No, not yet. At the very instant when it
seemed the panting flesh and blood would be shaken off by the granite
force repelling it, the fingers, like long antennae, touched horns of
rock jutting out from ledges on the third escarpment of the wall. Here
was the last point of the worst stage of the journey. Slowly, heavily,
the body drew up to the shelf of limestone, and crouched in an inert
bundle. There it lay for a long time.

While the long minutes went by, a voice kept calling up from below;
calling, calling, at first eagerly, then anxiously, then with terror.
By and by the bundle of life stirred, took shape, raised itself, and
was changed into a man again, a thinking, conscious being, who now
understood the meaning of this sound coming up from the earth below--or
was it the sea? A human voice had at last pierced the awful exhaustion
of the deadly labour, the peril and strife, which had numbed the brain
while the body, in its instinct for existence, still clung to the rocky
ledges. It had called the man back to earth--he was no longer a great
animal, and the rock a monster with skin and scales of stone.

"Ranulph! Maitre Ranulph! Ah, Ranulph!" called the voice.

Now he knew, and he answered down: "All right, all right, garche
Carterette!"

"Are you at the top?"

"No, but the rest is easy."

"Hurry, hurry, Ranulph. If they should come before you reach the top!"

"I'll soon be there."

"Are you h