Then he wondered, many hundred times, whether Olivia could possibly have recognized him.

When the dark had fallen they set out.  The ilex grove was very still save for a fugitive wind that carried faint spices, and they took a winding way among trunks and reached the edge of the wood without adventure.  There Ulfin and another of the six carriers were waiting, as Jarvo had expected, and it was decided that they should both accompany Rollo down to the yacht.

Rollo handed the oil-skins to St. George and Amory, and then stood crushing his hat in his hands, doing his best to speak.

“Look sharp, Rollo,” St. George advised him, “don’t step one foot off a precipice.  And tell the people on the yacht not to worry.  We shall expect to see them day after to-morrow, somewhere about.  Take care of yourself.”

“Oh, sir,” said Rollo with difficulty, “good-by, sir.  I ’ope you’ll be successful, sir.  A person likes to succeed in what they undertake.”

Then the three went on down the glimmering way where, last night, they had pursued the floating pennon of the veil.  There were few upon the highway, and these hardly regarded them.  It occurred to St. George that they passed as figures in a dream will pass, in the casual fashion of all unreality, taking all things for granted.  Yet, of course, to the passers-by upon the road to Med, there was nothing remarkable in the aspect of the three companions.  All that was remarkable was the adventure upon which they were bound, and nobody could possibly have guessed that.

Almost a mile lay between them and the point where the ascent of the mountain was to be begun.  The road which they were taking followed at the foot of the embankment which girt the island, and it led them at last to a stretch of arbourescent heath, piled with black basaltic rocks.  Here, where the light was dim like the glow from light reflected upon low clouds, they took their way among great branching cacti and nameless plants that caught at their ankles.  A strange odour rose from the earth, mineral, metallic, and the air was thick with particles stirred by their feet and more resembling ashes than dust.  This was a waste place of the island, and if one were to lift a handful of the soil, St. George thought, it was very likely that one might detect its elements; as, here the dust of a temple, here of a book, here a tomb and here a sacrifice.  He felt himself near the earth, in its making.  He looked away to the sugar-loaf cone of the mountain risen against the star-lit sky.  Above its fortress-like bulk with circular ramparts burned the clear beacon of the light on the king’s palace.  As he saw the light, St. George knew himself not only near the earth but at one with the very currents of the air, partaker of now a hope, now a task, now a spell, and now a memory.  It was as if love had made him one with the dust of dead cities and with their eternal spiritual effluence.