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A continuous rumbling, that increased as they advanced, made them aware that they must be approaching the central funnel of the volcano; their only fear was lest some insuperable wall of rock should suddenly bar their further progress. Servadac was some distance ahead. "Come on!" he cried cheerily, his voice ringing through the darkness, "come on! Our fire is lighted! no stint of fuel!
"It's only a volcano," said he. "I knew there was one hereabouts, but thought it was extinct. Up there and furl top-gallant sails; we'll likely have a breeze, and it's well to be ready." As he spoke a shower began to fall, which we quickly observed was not rain but fine ashes. As we were many miles distant from the volcano, these must have been carried to us from it by the wind.
She looked calm and quiet enough sitting there with her placid face and smooth brow; but this woman was like a slumbering volcano, and her passions were all the more dangerous from being kept in check.
The amphoræ are yet prepared for the festival of the following day; the flour which was to be kneaded is still to be seen; the remains of a woman, are still decorated with those ornaments which she wore on the holiday that the Volcano disturbed, and her calcined arms no longer fill the bracelets of precious stones which still surround them.
M. de Luc again attempts to explain it by violent explosions; I suppose he means those of a volcano. But he has not given us the evidence upon which such an opinion may be founded, farther than by saying that those blocks could not have come there by the natural operations of the surface.
To him the fishermen offer, on landing, the first fish they have caught that day for they imagine that he it is who drives the fish to their shores. But the greatest of all their gods, or, at all events, the most feared, is Pele, the goddess of the volcano. She resides on the summit of Mona Roa, and descends in fire and flames to punish her enemies below.
When the peril was over it surprised me to remember that Van Blaricom had been comparatively cool through it all; for I had still before me a certain scene at the volcano of Kilauea. I was to be still more surprised. We were by no means out of danger.
The volcanic productions which cover the immediate neighbourhood of the town and the plain to the west of it, are probably owing to former eruptions of the same volcano; for nothing is said, in the relation, of stones having been cast out of the crater to any considerable distance, and the whole plain to the westward, as far as Wady Akyk, three miles distant, is covered with the above-described volcanic productions.
"Suppose we do move to the far side, we shall still be within reach. We are fixed here, and it seems to me to be the best spot we can find, and the farthest from the volcano. I'm afraid it must be a case of war. Either our friend must be driven away or killed. What do you say, major, to an expedition in search of him?" "I'm willing," said the major. "But the risk?" said Mrs Strong.
It reached half-way, then, finding that the rain of stones and ashes threatened to sink it, returned. The boat started anew at ten o'clock and rounded the point of Carbet. The volcano was shrouded in smoke and ashes. For three miles the coast was in flames. Seventeen vessels in the roadstead, two of which were American steamers, burned at anchor.
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