This staircase with its supports was, indeed, a work of which
any living man might have been proud, both on account of its
magnitude and its surpassing beauty. Four times, as we afterwards
learnt, did the work, which was commenced in remote antiquity,
fail, and was then abandoned for three centuries when half-finished,
till at last there rose a youthful engineer named Rademas, who
said that he would complete it successfully, and staked his life
upon it. If he failed he was to be hurled from the precipice
he had undertaken to scale; if he succeeded, he was to be rewarded
by the hand of the king's daughter. Five years was given to
him to complete the work, and an unlimited supply of labour and
material. Three times did his arch fall, till at last, seeing
failure to be inevitable, he determined to commit suicide on
the morrow of the third collapse. That night, however, a beautiful
woman came to him in a dream and touched his forehead, and of
a sudden he saw a vision of the completed work, and saw too through
the masonry and how the difficulties connected with the flying
arch that had hitherto baffled his genius were to be overcome.
Then he awoke and once more commenced the work, but on a different
plan, and behold! he achieved it, and on the last day of the
five years he led the princess his bride up the stair and into
the palace.
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