It would keep for a few hours longer.
"Dismissing my pre-occupied manner which had caused no small astonishment to Peter and Paul, I fixed the position of the tree as firmly as I could in my mind, and gave the word to advance.
"We then continued in the same order as before, whilst, to make matters sure, I counted our steps.

I had reached six hundred and twenty-though when I considered the darkness and the rough path I reflected that this was but little help--when we arrived at the second set of chains.

My foot was already beginning to give me pain, but under any circumstances this would have been by far the worst of the ascent.

All around us stretched darkness void and horrible, leading, for all that we could see, down through veils of curling mist into illimitable depths.

In front the rock was almost perpendicular.