For a long time they continued crossing the rough and rocky slope, maintaining a slightly upward course.  The angle was so steep that a false step would have been fatal.  The high ground was on their right.  After a while, the hillside on the left hand changed to level ground, and they seemed to have joined another spur of the mountain.  The ascending slope on the right hand persisted for a few hundred yards more.  Then Sullenbode bore sharply to the left, and they found level ground all around them.

“We are on the ridge,” announced the woman, halting.

The others came up to her, and at the same instant the moon burst through the clouds, illuminating the whole scene.

Maskull uttered a cry.  The wild, noble, lonely beauty of the view was quite unexpected.  Teargeld was high in the sky to their left, shining down on them from behind.  Straight in front, like an enormously wide, smoothly descending road, lay the great ridge which went on to Adage, though Adage itself was out of sight.  It was never less than two hundred yards wide.  It was covered with green snow, in some places entirely, but in other places the naked rocks showed through like black teeth.  From where they stood they were unable to see the sides of the ridge, or what lay underneath.  On the right hand, which was north, the landscape was blurred and indistinct.  There were no peaks there; it was the distant, low-lying land of Barey.  But on the left hand appeared a whole forest of mighty pinnacles, near and far, as far as the eye could see in moonlight.  All glittered green, and all possessed the extraordinary hanging caps that characterised the Lichstorm range.  These caps were of fantastic shapes, and each one was different.  The valley directly opposite them was filled with rolling mist.

Sarclash was a mighty mountain mass in the shape of a horseshoe.  Its two ends pointed west, and were separated from each other by a mile or more of empty space.  The northern end became the ridge on which they stood.  The southern end was the long line of cliffs on that part of the mountain where Haunte’s cave was situated.  The connecting curve was the steep slope they had just traversed.  One peak of Sarclash was invisible.

In the south-west many mountains raised their heads.  In addition, a few summits, which must have been of extraordinary height, appeared over the south side of the horseshoe.

Maskull turned round to put a question to Sullenbode, but when he saw her for the first time in moonlight the words he had framed died on his lips.  The gashlike mouth no longer dominated her other features, and the face, pale as ivory and most femininely shaped, suddenly became almost beautiful.  The lips were a long, womanish curve of rose-red.  Her hair was a dark maroon.  Maskull was greatly disturbed; he thought that she resembled a spirit, rather than a woman.

“What puzzles you?” she asked, smiling.