Into the Volcano
By the time Grampa had recovered enough to sit up the boat was scraping
on the black rocks at the foot of the dark tower.
“Cinders! Soot!” called the rowers loudly. In answer to their hail a
door opened cautiously and the keepers of the dark tower peered out.
“What’s wanted?” asked the first hoarsely, while the second swung his
dark lantern toward the party in the boat.
“Take these men to Blazes and tell him to send ’em up!” directed the
flame men together and, almost pushing Grampa and his little company
from the boat, they jumped in and started to row back to their island.
The dark tower was wet and clammy and made of moss that soaked up the
rays of light from Fire Island as a sponge soaks up water. The keepers
of the tower themselves looked burnt out and cindery and far from
agreeable.
“You go!” said Soot, after a contemptuous glance at the newcomers.
“I’ve got to keep the light out.”
“All right!” agreed Cinders. “Come on you, whatever you ares!” There
was no way to get back to Fire Island, so Grampa motioned for the others
to come and in silence they followed Cinders over the black, slippery
rocks. Bill perched on Grampa’s shoulder and Tatters held fast to Urtha,
who for the first time seemed a little frightened.
“Being alive is so strange,” sighed the little flower girl, stepping
along tremulously.
“It’s not always like this,” whispered the Prince comfortingly. He was
terribly frightened himself, but resolved to be as brave as he could
before this lovely little lady of flowers. The dark tower seemed to be
on the mainland of this queer underground country and, after a short
march over the rocks, they came to a steep gray mountain. There was a
door in the center and Cinders hammered on this with a poker he carried
under one arm. The door opened immediately and a hot red glare smote the
travellers in the face.
“John says to send these creatures up,” grumbled Cinders, backing out of
the light.
“I hope that medicine’s still working!” groaned Grampa. “Do you still
feel cool?”
“Pretty cool,” faltered the Prince of Ragbad. “But—”
“Come in,” roared the huge fireman, who had opened the door, “do you
want to give me a chill?” Snatching Tatters by one hand and Urtha by the
other, he jerked them through the door and Grampa, seeing that Cinders
was about to slam it shut, sprang in quickly after them. Blazes was
about twice as tall as the men on Fire Island and his flaming face was
cruel and ugly.
“So you’re to be sent up?” he sneered, staring curiously at the
bewildered little company. “Well, you’re not worth an eruption, but
orders are orders, so up you go!”
Grampa could find no words to answer, for his eyes were glued in horror
upon the boiling lake of lava, churning about a few feet below. Thick
green smoke curled up toward them in clouds and just as he was about to
order a hasty retreat to the door the keeper of the volcano seized a
forty-foot poker and plunged it into the lake.
Next instant it had risen to the top, caught the four fire-proof
travellers in its sulphurous waves and hurled itself frothing and
bubbling to the top of the earth. Being erupted from a volcano is such a
noisy, smothering, altogether terrifying experience that Grampa and his
little army could not have told what was happening had they tried. And
had it not been for Gorba’s medicine they would have blown clear out of
the story, but, thanks to the medicine, the boiling lava did not injure
them and having hurled them from the middle of the earth and some fifty
feet higher than the earth, the liquid immediately surrounding them
began to harden and form a flying-island.
Of course Grampa and Tatters were too dizzy to know this and the first
indication they had that the eruption was over was a dreadful bounce and
a perfect shower of water. The water brought them to their senses
and—fearfully opening their eyes—they looked around. Horrors! The
volcano was in the Kingdom of Ev, on the other side of the Deadly
Desert, and had flung them clear into the Nonestic Ocean itself! This
great body of water lies far to the Northwest and mighty few Ozites have
ever reached its shores.
“Well,” coughed Grampa, rubbing his game leg vigorously, “I thought we
were goners, but I see we are survivors. Are you all right? Are you all
here?”
Urtha shook her lovely fern hair out of her eyes and, strange as it may
seem, the little flower girl had come through the eruption without
crushing a single posy.
“Fair and cooler!” wheezed Bill, hopping up on a little ridge of the
hardened lava.
“But how did we get here?” asked Tatters, rubbing his eyes.
“You’ll have to ask Blazes,” puffed Grampa, “but I must say I prefer
water to fire.” Already the spirits of the old soldier were beginning to
rise. “We may be far from home, but we’re on top again and still
moving.” Grampa took a few marching steps and waved his sword.
“And what are those?” asked Urtha, standing on tip-toe to point at the
stars. In the wizard’s garden there had been no sky. Tatters explained
as best he could and the little flower girl clasped her hands and gazed
up in delight. “They’re sky flowers,” she confided to Bill, but the
weather cock was too busy looking for the fortune to answer.
“Seems to me we’re shipwrecked,” observed Tatters gloomily. Their little
island was bobbing up and down on top of the waves and there was no land
of any kind in sight. But Grampa, who had been investigating the
contents of his knapsack, gave a little chuckle. The bread and butter
they had picked in the wizard’s garden—not being entirely fire proof—was
nicely toasted and looked so crisp and inviting that it made Grampa’s
mouth water.
“What you fussing about?” said the old soldier, winking at the Prince.
“’Tisn’t everybody can have their supper cooked in a volcano.” He
handed Tatters a great pile of the toast and after the Prince of Ragbad
had eaten a dozen slices, he began to feel more cheerful himself.
“All we need is a little sleep,” yawned the old soldier, after they had
finished off the toast, for neither Bill nor Urtha needed food. “If Bill
will keep watch, you and I had better turn in, for there’s no knowing
what may happen to-morrow.”
“I’ll keep watch,” promised Bill readily.
“Hush!” warned Grampa suddenly, for Urtha, wearied by her strange
adventures, had fallen fast asleep in the middle of counting the stars
and lay in a fragrant heap, her lovely violet eyes closed tight and all
the big and little posies that made up the wonderful little flower girl
herself were asleep too.
“If she hadn’t been a fairy,” whispered Grampa, looking down at her
affectionately, “she would have wilted long ago. We must take good care
of her, my boy, for I doubt if there’s as lovely a little lady anywhere
else in Oz.”
“She’s the only luck we’ve had,” mused Tatters, “and I wish—” The Prince
looked up at the stars and did not finish his sentence but, rolling up
the skin of the old thread bear, he made a pillow for Urtha’s head and
he and Grampa went tip-toeing to the other side of the island and
stretched themselves on the ground. The motion of the little island, as
it rode lightly over the waves, was very soothing and before long the
old soldier and the young Prince were sound asleep too, leaving only the
weather cock on guard. And Bill, in all the years he had spent on the
barn near Chicago, had never felt so important. Perched on the highest
ridge of the island, he kept a sharp look-out in all directions,
scanning the tumbling waters of the Nonestic Ocean for signs of a
fortune and a Princess and talking softly to himself in the starlight.
Grampa was having a fine dream. He was being presented at court and was
just about to shake hands with Princess Ozma herself, when he was
wakened by a ton of kitchen tins falling down a mountainside. Or that’s
what it sounded like to Grampa. Leaping to his feet, the old soldier
snatched up his gun. Tatters and Urtha were both sitting bolt upright,
rubbing their eyes.
“It’s Bill!” yawned the Prince sleepily. With an exclamation of
disgust, the old soldier threw down his gun and covered his ears. The
weather cock was indulging in his morning crow and helping the sun to
rise. Just as Grampa thought he could not stand it another minute, the
frightful clamor ceased.
“The sun has risen,” announced Bill calmly, “and there’s land ahead!”
It was a bit foggy but, crowding to the edge of the island, the little
company saw that they were being carried straight toward a land of ice
and snow. Tatters and Urtha had never seen snow before, for there is no
snow in Oz, but Grampa had read all about such things in Fumbo’s books
and, while he was explaining, the little island bumped on the snowy
shores of this strange ice-bound land.
“All off!” cried Grampa, seizing Urtha by the hand. Tatters ran back
for his umbrella and the skin of the old thread bear; then jumped after
Grampa and the flower maiden.
“Colder and colder!” predicted Bill, flying after the Prince and
settling on the branches of an ice-covered tree. But Tatters was not
thinking of the weather. With round eyes, he was studying a huge sign
that stretched between two tall hemlocks.
“The Illustrious Island of Isa Poso,” announced the sign, and in smaller
letters, “Beware of the dragon.”
“Great Gollywockers!” gasped the old soldier, reading over Tatters’
shoulder. “Can’t they give a feller a rest?”
“What’s a dragon?” asked Urtha, touching Tatters on the arm.