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.
Strange fragrance stole from gum and bark of the decreasing vegetation.

Dislodged stones rolled bounding from rock to rock into the abyss.

To right and left the way went.

There was not even the friendly beacon of the summit to beckon them.

It seemed to St.
George that their whole safety lay in motion, that a moment's cessation from the advance would hurl them all down the sides of the declivity.