// We don't want this in production code as this is the most critical part of the loop.
    assert input.length >= offset + 8;
    // Delegates to the fast (unsafe) version or the fallback.
    return byteArray.getLongLittleEndian(input, offset);
  }

  /**
   * Similar to load64, but allows offset + 8 > input.length, padding the result with zeroes. This