"Must be one of the men," said Oliver, excitedly. "Come on."
"But that thing you saw below there among the trees?"
"We can't stop about that. It's some kind of great cat. I'll try
this."
He raised his gun and fired quickly in among the trees to scare the
creature, whatever it might be, and there came in response a snarling
yell, followed by a crashing, as of the animal bounding away through the
undergrowth.
Directly after there came from high up a second report, as if from a
minor explosion of the volcano, but it was evidently only the echo of
the gun.
There was another sound though, which was far more startling and
awe-inspiring, and made the three young men draw together and stand
gazing upward, waiting to find which direction would be the safest in
which to flee.
For, directly after the echo, there was a strange whispering noise as of
cinders sliding one over the other a long distance away and right up
towards the crater above their heads.
As naturalists they knew on the instant what this meant, and it struck
all in the same way--that it resembled the falling of a little hard
granulated ice in a mountain--the starting of an avalanche. And as the
ash and cinder, with the vitrified blocks of stone, lay loose on the
mighty slope, they felt that it was quite possible for the firing of the
gun to have caused an avalanche of another kind.
In a few seconds they knew that this was the case, for the whispering
rapidly increased into a loud rustling, which soon became a rush, and
directly after increased to a roar; and now, for the first time, they
began to realise how vast the mountain was in its height and extent, for
the rushing sound went on and on, gathering in force, and at last Drew
exclaimed, as he gazed upward at an indistinct mist apparently
travelling down towards them,--
"Come on; we shall be swept away."
"No, no," cried Panton and Oliver, almost in a breath; "We may be as
safe here as anywhere. Perhaps we should rush into more danger."
And now the warm, ruddy glow of the setting sun was obscured by rising
clouds, which they at once grasped were dust; a semi-darkness came on,
and through this they had a glimpse of the mountain-side all in motion
and threatening to overwhelm them where they stood.
It was hard work to master the feeling of panic which impelled them to
run for their lives, but fortunately they had strength of mind enough to
stand fast while the tumult increased, and, joining hands, they kept
their places with hearts throbbing, half-suffocated by the dust which
now shut them in, while, with a furious roar, the avalanche of cinder,
stones, and ashes swept by, not twenty yards from where they stood, and
subsided amidst the cracking of boughs and tearing up of trees at the
edge of the forest.
It was like the dying sighs of some monster, the sound they heard
directly after growing fainter and fainter, till there was the mere
whisper made by trickling ashes, then even that subsided, and they stood
in a cloud of dust, listening while it slowly rolled away. At last, as
they gazed downward, there, below them, to the right, was a huge opening
torn into the forest, with broken limbs, prostrate trunks, and great
mop-like roots standing up out from a slope of grey cinders and calcined
stones.
"What an escape," muttered Oliver. "Warning: we must not fire again
near the mountain."
"Hark!" cried Panton. "There it is again."
For, from a distance, came a long, low, mournful shout, and directly
after it was repeated, and they made out that it was the familiar
sea-going _Ahoy_.
"It's only one of the men," said Oliver, and, putting his hand to his
mouth, he was about to answer, but Panton checked him.
"Will it bring down another fall?" he whispered.
"No, no. There can be little fear of that now," said Oliver. "All the
loose dusty stuff must have come down," and he hailed loudly; but his
cry had, apparently, no effect, for it was not answered.
"Come on," said Panton, after a few moments' pause in the awful silence,
which seemed to be far more terrible now, after the fall; and in the
gathering darkness they started off, with the edge of the forest on
their right to guide them. But the first part of their journey was not
easy, for they had to climb and struggle through the ash and cinders,
which had fallen, for a space of quite a couple of hundred yards before
they were upon firm ground.
Then, as they stopped for a few moments to regain their breath, there
was the mournful, despairing _Ahoy_! again, but though they answered
several times over, there was no response till they had tramped on
amidst increasing difficulties for quite a quarter of an hour--that
which had been comparatively easy in broad daylight, growing more and
more painful and toilsome as the darkness deepened.
Then, all at once, after a response to the mournful _Ahoy_, there came a
hail in quite a different tone.
"Ahoy! Where away?"
"All right! Where are you?" cried Oliver.
"Here you are, sir. Here you are," came from not a hundred yards away,
and directly after they met Wriggs.
"It's you, then, who has been hailing," cried Oliver. "Why didn't you
answer when we shouted?"
"Did yer shout, sir? Never heerd yer till just now. Thought I should
never hear no one again. Got lost and skeered. But I've found you at
last."
"Found us, yes, of course. What made you leave Smith and come after
us?"
"Didn't, sir. He left me and lost hisself, and I couldn't find him. It
was soon after we'd lit a fire. He went off to get some more wood and
there was an end of him."
"What, Smith gone?"
"Yes, sir. He's swallowed up in some hole or another, or else eat up by
wild beasts. I couldn't find him nowhere, and I couldn't stand it alone
there among them sarpents."
"Serpents? What, near our camp?" said Drew, who began to think of their
adventure in the cabin.
"Yes, sir," said Wriggs, who was all of a tremble from exertion and
dread. "I stood it as long as I could, with 'em hissing all round me,
and then I felt as though if I stopped alone much longer I should go off
my chump."
"What?"
"Go raving mad, sir, so I shoved some more stuff on the fire, and as
soon as it began to blaze and crackle there was a bigger hissing than
ever, and the serpents all came rushing at me, and I ran for my life and
to try and find you."
"Come along," cried Panton. "We must get back and find Smith."
"You never will, sir," said Wriggs, dolefully. "Poor old Tommy's gone.
I expect it was the snakes. They must have smelt as it was we who
skinned their mates. I had a narrow escape from 'em."
"Did you see them?" asked Oliver.
"Well, sir, I didn't zackly see 'em, but I could hear 'em all about me
awful."
"Then you are not sure they were snakes?"
"Not sure, sir? Why, that I am. Nothing else couldn't keep on hissing
at you but snakes and sarpents. Oh, lor! it's a horful lonesome place,
I was a shivering all down my back. Why, not long ago, while I was
coming along hailing of yer, I heard a mountain come sliding down like
thunder, and shooting loads o' stones."
"You've been scared, Wriggs," said Oliver, as he hurried the man back.
"Tell me again."
"What, 'bout being scared, sir?"
"Nonsense, we mustn't be scared at a noise; I mean about Smith wandering
away."
"Aren't nowt to tell, sir, only as he went to get some more wood, and
the sarpents caught him. Swaller a feller up whole, don't they, sir?"
"Serpents do swallow their food whole," said Oliver.
"Ah, that accounts for his not answering when I shouted. Of course, I
couldn't hear him or him me if he was swallowed down into some long
thing's inside."
"There, that will do," said Oliver, impatiently. "I say, Panton, are we
going right?"
"Must be; the edge of the wood is below us on the right."
"But everything looks so different."
"Yes, looks dark," said Drew. "But we ought to be pretty close to the
place now."
"I'm afraid we've turned up too much among the rocks. It will be
horrible to be lost now. I wish we had not come," said Panton. "We
ought to be resting ready for our work to-morrow."
"All right: we've passed the opening into the forest," cried Oliver.
"How do you know?"
"Look back a little, and you'll see the gleam of the fire. There,
look."
For, as they stopped and glanced back, there was a sudden blaze of light
from some fifty yards below them, as if the fire had fallen together and
flashed up.
"I thought we couldn't be far away," continued Oliver.
"Look, look, sir," whispered Wriggs, stopping short, and catching the
young man's arm.
"What at? The fire? Yes, I see it."
"No, sir, close to it. There, it's a-moving. Tommy Smith's ghost."
"Ahoy, ghost!" shouted Oliver, as he caught sight of the figure.
"Ahoy it is, sir," came in stentorian tones. "Seen anything o' poor
Billy Wriggs, sir? He's wanished."
"Mussy on me, Tommy," shouted Wriggs, running forward to grasp his
comrade's hand, "I thought you was a dead 'un."
"Not so bad as that, messmet," said Smith shaking hands heartily, "but I
had a nasty tumble down into a sort o' crack place, and it reg'lar
stunned me for a bit, and when I come back you was gone."
"But did you hear 'em?" said Wriggs, in a husky whisper.
"Who's 'em?" said Smith.
"Sarpents."
"What, a-hissin' like mad?"
"Ay."
"'Tarn't serpents, Billy, it's some hot water holes clost by here, and
every now and then they spits steam. Fust time I heerd it I thought it
was a cat."
Half an hour later all were sleeping soundly, only one having his
slumber disturbed by dreams, and that was Wriggs, who had turned over on
his back, and in imagination saw himself surrounded by huge snakes, all
in two pieces. They rose up and hissed at him while he struggled to get
away, but seemed to be held down by something invisible; but the most
horrible part of his dream was that some of the serpents hissed at him
with their heads, and others stood up on the part where they had been
divided, and hissed at him with the points of their tails.