He opened his Guide Book to make quite sure of the way, and though within its pages he found words which strengthened him and encouraged him, he also found a warning which he pondered over for some time.
"'Let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall.'"
Clasping his Guide Book in one hand and his sword in the other, he continued to mount. The way at first was not difficult. It was a gradual slope by the side of high cliffs, and occasionally out of the rock there flowed past him a stream of cool water, with which he quenched his thirst. The scenery was magnificent, but all the time he felt conscious, that though the enemies of the road had as yet made no sign of their presence, they were not likely to be far off, so that it was not wise to loiter on the way.
As he ascended higher the path became steeper, the scenery more awful in its character, but the air was exhilarating. Frowning precipices confronted him, masses of rocks piled one on the top of the other rose before his view, deep gorges and chasms lay beneath him. Wherever he looked he was fascinated by its grandeur and awed by its impressiveness.
Higher and higher his path led him, till he felt himself to be at so giddy a height that he trembled, though rejoicing.
He remembered when he had first started out on his journey, mounting a hill and crying out in his exuberance of spirits and pride,
"'I shall never be removed: Thou Lord of Thy goodness hast made my hill so strong:'" and he recollected how the words had scarcely left his mouth, when the enemy, Spiritual Pride, in all his grand trappings, had accosted him and led him to what might have been his ruin. How soon he had had to change his cry and say:—
"'Thou didst turn Thy face from me and I was troubled.'"
The remembrance of those days, together with the warning he had read in his Guide Book, kept him on the watch, and forbade him thinking of his own strength or ability. And whenever he was tempted to think that he must be a brave soldier to have been led by this path, he put the thought away from him; he knew when such thoughts crossed his mind that the enemy was near.
At last, at a giddy height he came to a standstill, discovering that his path lay across a narrow bridge which spanned a deep, dark gorge, so deep and so dark that Amer could not see the bottom.