Years passed over him, yet he worked on; but the wall towered up always above him to heaven.
Sometimes he prayed that a little moss or lichen might spring up on those bare walls to be a companion to him; but it never came." The stranger watched the boy's face.
"And the years rolled on; he counted them by the steps he had cut--a few for a year--only a few.

He sang no more; he said no more, 'I will do this or that'-- he only worked.

And at night, when the twilight settled down, there looked out at him from the holes and crevices in the rocks strange wild faces.
"'Stop your work, you lonely man, and speak to us,' they cried.
"'My salvation is in work, if I should stop but for one moment you would creep down upon me,' he replied.

And they put out their long necks further.
"'Look down into the crevice at your feet,' they said.

'See what lie there--white bones! As brave and strong a man as you climbed to these rocks.' And he looked up.