All the forward part of the boat, and, indeed, the space well back
toward the stern, was piled with boxes and bags.
"What is this place called?" asked the Prince, but the young steersman
did not reply.
Tying the boat to iron rings at the small landing where the steps
began, three of the men shipped their oars. Each threw a bag over his
shoulder, walked up half a dozen steps and waited. The clerk motioned
Lermontoff to follow, so he stepped on the shelf of rock and looked
upward at the rugged stairway cut between the main island and an
outstanding perpendicular ledge of rock. The steps were so narrow that
the procession had to move up in Indian file; three men with bags,
then the Prince and the clerk, followed by three more men with boxes.
Lermontoff counted two hundred and thirty-seven steps, which brought
him to an elevated platform, projecting from a doorway cut in the
living rock, but shielded from all sight of the sea. The eastern sun
shone through this doorway, but did not illumine sufficiently the
large room whose walls, ceiling and floor were of solid stone. At the
farther end a man in uniform sat behind a long table on which burned
an oil lamp with a green shade. At his right hand stood a broad, round
brazier containing glowing coals, after the Oriental fashion, and the
officer was holding his two hands over it, and rubbing them together.
The room, nevertheless, struck chill as a cellar, and Lermontoff heard
a constant smothered roar of water.
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