“Yet our speed was not trifling.  We had passed a train of white-clothed pilgrims in the morning soon after leaving Ratnapoora.  Since then we had seen no man except one poor old priest at the ruined resting-house where we ate our mid-day meal.  The shadow of the forest allowed us to travel through the heat of the day, and the thirst of discovery would have hurried me on even had the guides protested.  But they were both sturdy, well-built men, and suffered from the heat far less than I did.  So we hardly paused until, in the first swift gloom of sunset, we emerged on the grassy lawn of Diabetne, beneath the very face of the cone.

“We had to rest for the night in the ruined Ambulam, as it is called; and here, thoroughly tired but sleepless, I lay for some hours and watched the innumerable stars creep out and crown that sublime head which rose at first into a fathomless blue that was almost black, and then as the moon swept up, flashed into unutterable radiance.  Nothing, I am told, can compare with the moonlight of Ceylon, and I can well believe it.  That night I read clearly once again by the light of its rays my father’s manuscript, that no point in it should escape my memory; then sank down upon my rugs and slept an uneasy sleep.

“In an hour or two, as it seemed, I was awakened by Peter, who shook me and proclaimed it time to be stirring if we meant to see the sunrise from the summit.  The moon was still resplendent as we started across the three miles or ‘league of heaven’ that still lay between us and the actual cone.  This league traversed, we plunged down a gully and crossed a stream whose waters danced in the silver moonlight until the eyes were dazzled, then swept in a pearly shower down numberless ledges of rock.  After this the climb began in good earnest.  After a stretch of black forest, we issued on a narrow track that grew steeper at every step.  The moon presently ceased to help us here, so that my guides lit torches, which flared and cast long shadows on the rocky wall.  By degrees the track became a mere watercourse, up which we could only scramble one by one.  So narrow was it that two men could scarcely pass, yet so richly clothed in vegetation that our torches scorched the overhanging ferns.  Peter led the way, and I followed close at his heels, for fear of loose stones; but every now and then a crash and a startled cry from Paul behind us told us that we had sent a boulder flying down into the depths.  Beyond this and the noise of our footsteps there was no sound.  We went but slowly, for the labour of the day before had nearly exhausted us, but at length we scrambled out into the moonlight again upon a rocky ledge half-way up the mountainside.