or turned beneath the foot. Sometimes a mass dislodged would clatter down with hollow echoings;—sometimes the substance trodden would burst like an empty shell. … Stars pointed and thrilled;—and the darkness deepened.
“Do not fear, my son,” said the Bodhisattva, guiding: “danger there is none, though the way be grim.”
Under the stars they climbed,—fast, fast,—mounting by help of power superhuman. High zones of mist they passed; and they saw below them, ever widening as they climbed, a soundless flood of cloud, like the tide of a milky sea.
Hour after hour they climbed;—and forms invisible yielded to their tread with dull soft crashings;—and faint cold fires lighted and died at every breaking.
And once the pilgrim-youth laid hand on a something smooth that was not stone,—and lifted it,—and dimly saw the cheekless gibe of death.
“Linger not thus, my son!” urged the voice of the teacher;—“the summit that we must gain is very far away!”
On through the dark they climbed,—and felt continually beneath them the soft strange break-
