* @return a long of a concatenated 8 bytes
   */
  static long load64(byte[] input, int offset) {
    // 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);
  }

  /**