As the Arabs dragged him up the face of the stone, the boy felt as though his arms would come clear out of their sockets. A final jerk brought him on the stone. Again a swing and a leap, and he found himself scrambling up another block, again almost five feet high. A third stretch, which he tried to open his legs to reach, as though he were a pair of scissors, felt as if it were going to split him in half, and he found himself already out of breath.
“Wow!” he said, feeling that he would give a good deal to have a hand free to rub himself.
“Eoie!” cried the Arabs and swung him up another of the great boulders.
“But look here—” began Perry, seeking to gain a moment’s breathing space.
“Easier by-’n-by,” answered the Arab who had first spoken to him. “Eoie!”
And up he went again.
Perry remembered that he had read how, throughout all the ages, people had wondered in what way the builders of four thousand years ago, who had no machinery, had managed to raise these huge stones, for the lower courses were four feet ten inches high and sometimes eight feet long. Even the upper stones were little less than three feet.
“Eoie!” cried the Arabs, and he took another flying leap.
“That’s only six out of two hundred and three,” said Perry, half aloud, and he wondered whether he would get to the top as a complete boy or as two half boys. But, after another dozen jerks, which made Perry feel as though he were a cross between a grasshopper and a kangaroo, they reached the part of the pyramid where the steps were only three feet high. As his eye caught sight of them, the boy felt easier in his mind. Now he could get his breath.
Did the Arabs spare him? Not a bit.