Page:Son of the wind.djvu/304

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SON OF THE WIND

with more exigent pressure, telling him, "Wait; here's the time and the place."

He had halted before he looked. They had come up almost to the foot of the wall of hills. They must have approached it over the level in a gradually slanted course, for at no time had he seen it in front of him. He had been aware of it all the while upon his right as a darkish background to Blanche's head; but now the horses had stopped just beyond the long slides of scattered stone, and what had appeared as a continuous rampart separated itself into overlapping pyramids and columns; what at a little distance had worn a dark luster now looked lighter than the plain.

Immediately in front of him a great pale mass of rock rose, upcropping from a base of earth. The Sugar Loaf upon its right lapped behind it. The one on the left leaned upon it, overtopping it with tall cliff-like pinnacles, curved at the crest as if the winds of centuries had bent it. Between these two lay a thin edge of shadow, like a black knife. It encroached not at all upon the lighted front. From the stones at its feet to the crown the greater rock was all one high clear tone, higher and clearer than white. The moon above it lit it like a lantern held to a face. Gray, yellow, silver, who could say what color or if there were color at all? It had a luster at

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