The sun was shining upon the globular mist which floated high up over
the top of the mountain when Panton woke and roused his companions, and
while the men raked up the embers, added wood to get the kettle to boil,
the three young companions walked to the spring for a bathe, by way of
preparation for an arduous day's work. Here they found, deep down in a
crack among the rocks, quite an extensive pool, into which the hot
spring flowed, and a journey of thirty or forty yards among the rocks,
exposed to the air, was sufficient to temper its heat into a pleasant
warmth, whose effects were delicious, giving to the skin, as it did,
consequent upon the salts it contained, a soft, silky feeling, which
tempted them to stay in longer.
"It wouldn't do," said Panton, withdrawing himself from the seductive
influence of the bath. "It would be enervating, I'm sure."
"Yes, let's dress," cried Oliver, and soon after they were making a
hearty meal, gazing up at the great slope they had to surmount, and
noting as they ate, the sinuous lines which appeared here and there upon
the mountain-side, and which they knew, from experience, to be cracks.
"Must dodge all of them, if we can," said Panton with his mouth full.
"If not, Smith must lay the ladder across for a bridge."
"But, I say, Lane," said Drew, after gazing upward for some time in
silence, "didn't you lay it on a bit too thick when we found you?"
"Yes," said Panton, "about the difficulty of the climb. Why, it looks
nothing. Only a hot tiring walk. I say, we ought to be peeping down
into the crater in an hour's time."
"Yes, we ought to be," said Oliver, drily. "Look sharp, my lads, eat
all you can, and then let's start. The tent can stay as it is till we
come back. We'll take nothing but some food and our bottles of water.
You carry the ladder, Wriggs, and you that long pole and the ropes,
Smith."
"Ay, ay, sir," said the men in duet, and a quarter of an hour later
Oliver, as having been pioneer, took the lead, and leaving the rugged
rocky ground they planted their feet upon the slope and began to climb.
"Don't seem to get much nearer the top," said Drew at the end of two
hours, when he had proposed that they should halt for a few minutes to
admire the prospect, in which Panton at once began to take a great deal
of interest.
"No, we haven't reached the top yet," said Oliver, drily.
"What a view!" cried Drew. "Oughtn't we soon to see the brig?"
"No," replied Oliver; "if we cannot see the mountain from the vessel,
how can we expect to see the vessel from the mountain? Ready to go on?"
"Yes, directly," said Panton. "You can see the ocean, though, and the
surf on the barrier reef. But I don't see any sign of savages."
"Phew! What's that?" cried Drew, suddenly.
"Puff of hot air from the mountain, or else from some crack. There must
be one near."
Oliver looked round and upward, but no inequality was visible, and they
climbed slowly and steadily up for some hundred yards before Panton, who
was now first, stopped short.
"I say, look here!" he cried. "We're done, and must go back."
Oliver joined him, and then gazed away to the west.
"This is the great crack I told you about," he said, "but it is much
narrower here."
"And not so deep, eh?" said Panton, with a slight sneer.
"That I can't say," replied Oliver; "deep enough if you could look
straight down. Here, Smith, let's have the ladder. Will it reach?"
The two men came up with the light ladder and pushed it across to find
that it was long enough to act as a bridge with a couple of feet to
spare.
"But it looks too risky," said Drew, while the two sailors glanced at
each other and scratched their heads as they wondered whether one of
them would be sent forward to try the ladder's strength.
"Yes, it looks risky," said Oliver, coolly, "but we have to do it."
"No, no," said Panton warmly, "it is too bad. I was disposed to chaff
you, Lane, because you threw the hatchet a little about your adventures.
It would be madness to cross that horrible rift."
"Hear, hear," said Smith, in an undertone.
"As aforesaid," said Wriggs.
"We're going across there," said Lane, coolly. "It's the nearest way up
and only needs care."
"But, oh! poof!" exclaimed Drew, "you can smell a horrible reek coming
up."
"Yes, that's what we keep getting puffs of as we climb. Give me the end
of that coil of line, Smith."
"Ay, ay, sir."
"Will it bear me?"
"Half a dozen o' your sort, sir. It's quite noo."
"Good," said Oliver, securing the end tightly about his chest.
"Then you're going to venture?" said Panton.
"Of course, and you're all coming, too. But you'll hold the line and if
the ladder breaks or I slip off, you'll hang on and drag me out?"
"Of course. But--"
"Never mind the buts," said Oliver, smiling, and just then, piqued by
his companion's banter, he would have crossed had the danger been far
greater.
"I say," cried Drew, "won't the sides crumble in from under the ladder?"
"Not likely," said Oliver, coolly; "there's a little ash at the edges,
but just below it is solid lava rock."
"Yes, that's so; and this is a huge crack formed in the cooling," said
Panton.
"Ready!" cried Oliver. "Hold the rope so that there is no drag upon me,
but be ready to tighten."
No one spoke, and Oliver walked to the ladder, placed one foot upon a
round, leaned forward, and looked down.
"You can see here," he said, without turning his head, "it goes down
till all is black darkness. Now then, let the rope slide through your
finger. Ready?"
"Yes, all right."
Then, to the horror of all, instead of going down upon hands and knees,
and crawling across, Oliver stepped boldly on upright from round to
round, till he reached the centre, where he stopped short, for the
slight poles of the ladder had given and given, sinking lower, till it
seemed as if they must break. Oliver knew it well, and had stopped
short, expecting to feel the check of the rope, which grew moist in the
hands which involuntarily tightened around it. The party in safety
watched with starting eyes, and breath held till, after a pause of some
seconds, which appeared to be prolonged into minutes, the bending ladder
began to spring and creak again, as, with his balance regained, Oliver
stepped on, round by round, and then reached the other side. Only about
a dozen feet, but to all it seemed like a horrible, long journey of the
greatest peril.
"Lane, lad," cried Panton, excitedly, as soon as his friend was over,
"what madness to go like that!"
"Shouldn't have thought me a coward and a boaster, then," said Oliver,
sitting down about three yards from the edge of the chasm, and
unfastening the rope from about his chest. "But it isn't safe to come
like that; I nearly lost my balance, the ladder bends so. Besides, it
will bear you better if you distribute your weight and come on all
fours."
"It's not safe even to do that," said Drew, sharply.
"As aforesaid," grumbled Wriggs.
"Oh, yes," said Oliver, smiling, "you can fasten the rope around you
Alpine fashion, and I shall hold one end; the others will hold the
second end, so that we shall all have you safely enough."
"All right," said Drew, shortly, and he made a loop, passed it over his
head and shoulders, tightened it, and advanced.
"Now then, draw in the line."
This was done, and with Oliver sitting with his heels firmly against a
projection of the rock, and hauling in foot by foot, and the others
giving, Drew went down on hands and knees, gripped the sides of the
ladder, and crawled across, the wood cracking a good deal, but not
bending nearly so much.
"There," said Oliver, as Drew unfastened the rope, "now you can help me
hold, and Panton can come over."
"I'm going to walk across," said Panton, firmly.
"No, you are not, man," cried Oliver; "you will crawl. We must run no
risks to-day."
Panton grumbled, but obeyed, crawling across in safety after coming to a
standstill in the middle and losing his nerve as he gazed down between
the rounds.
Then Wriggs came, and Smith was left to run as much risk as Oliver, for
he had only rope holders on the farther side, but he went across boldly
enough and without hesitation, the rope being steadily gathered in, and
when he was over he took a good grip of the ladder and drew it across as
well.
"I beg your pardon, Lane," said Panton, in a voice that only his
companion could hear. "It was only banter, but I ought to have known
better."
"All right, old fellow," cried his companion. "There, say no more."
The sun was growing intensely hot now, as Smith shouldered the ladder,
and they once more started up the slope, which rapidly grew steeper, so
stiff indeed was the ascent that Oliver, who led, after trying the
zigzag approach and finding it too difficult, bore away to the east,
making the ascent more gradual, and as if the intention was to form a
corkscrew-like path round the upper part of the mountain.
"We've done wrong," he said, after a couple of hours' struggle upwards,
"we ought to have gone to the west, and then by this time we should have
been in the shade instead of roasting here."
They had paused to have a bit of lunch and rest, for the heat was
intense now, and the cracks or rifts in the mountain slope more
frequent, but they were not half the width of that which had been just
crossed, and as the party had grown more confident they took each in
turn readily enough.
"We must make the best of it now," said Panton, "and I can't help
thinking that we are doing right."
"Why?" asked Drew.
"It seems to me that it would be impossible to get up to the crater edge
on account of these horrible hot gases which rise from the cracks. We
had better aim at getting round to the other side, and looking out from
there as high up as we can climb. We shall know then whether the place
is an island. What do you say, Lane?"
"The same as you do. I've been thinking so for an hour. You see, the
ashes get looser as we climb higher, and the mountain steeper. What
looked easy enough from below proves to be difficult in the extreme, and
if we go much higher I feel sure that we shall set loose a regular
avalanche and begin sliding down altogether."
A quarter of an hour later they started off again somewhat refreshed,
but suffering terribly from the volcanic heat radiating from the ashes
as well as from that from the sun, but they pressed on steadily, rising
higher and gradually getting round the north slope, though the farther
they tramped over the yielding ashes, the more they were impressed by
the fact that the mountain was ten times greater than they had imagined
it from below.
At last, late on in the afternoon, Oliver stopped short.
"We must get back before dark," he said. "Those chasms have to be
passed. What do you say, shall we go now?"
His proposal was agreed to at once, and they turned to have a good look
round. Above them towered the truncated cone looking precisely as it
did from the place where they had started that morning, and, while
Oliver adjusted his glass, Panton took out a pocket-compass, and Drew, a
watch-like aneroid barometer.
"I can see nothing but the barrier reef just as it was when we started.
Where are we now?" said Oliver. "Nearly north-east, are we not? and
sea, sea, sea, everywhere, nothing but sea in this direction."
"We are looking due north," said Panton, as the needle of his compass
grew steady.
"What, have we after all got round to the other side?"
"Seems so."
"Then the place is an island."
"Unless it joins the mainland somewhere west," said Panton.
"As far as I can see there is no land north or west. If we are on the
northern side now we must be able to see it at this height. How high
are we, Drew?"
"Just over four thousand feet, and I should say the mountain goes up
quite two thousand more, but it is very deceiving. Then we are upon an
island?"
"Hurrah!" cried Panton.
"I don't see where the hurrah comes in," said Oliver, quietly, "but I'm
glad that our journey has not been without some result."
"I should have liked to get to the top though," said Panton, looking
upward wistfully.
"I say, you two," said Drew, "we were to give a good look round for the
niggers."
"I've been doing so," said Oliver, whose eyes were still at his glass,
"and there isn't a sign of a hut, boat, or savage. Nothing but a
barrier reef shutting in a beautiful lagoon, and the cocoa-nut palms
fringing its edge."
"What about the lower slopes?" asked Drew.
"Dense forest for the most part, cut through every here and there by
what looks like old lava streams, which reach the lagoon, and form
cliffs."
"Then this side of the island is better wooded than the other?"
"Evidently, and there are two little streams running down from the dark
chaos of rock, that look to me different from the rest of the mountain.
You have a look, Panton."
The latter took the glass and stood sweeping the mountain slope for some
minutes, during which Smith and Wriggs sat down, and lit their pipes for
a restful smoke.
"All plain enough, as far as I can judge, my lads. That dark part in
the most wooded district is an old volcano, and this that we are on
seems to be quite new and active. I should say this island has been
quiescent for hundreds of years before it burst out into eruption, and
sent up this great pile of rock and ashes. Now then, what next?"
"Back to the tent before we are overtaken by the darkness," said Drew.
"Can we do it?" said Oliver.
"We're going to try. Now, then, all down-hill over the soft ash, I
daresay we shall be able to slide part of the way."
"No," cried Oliver, emphatically, "it must be fair walking. If we start
a slide of ashes and cinders, how are we to stop when we come near one
of the crevasses?"
"Or to avoid being buried?" said Drew, "Steady work is the thing."
He had hardly spoken these words when, as if resenting their presence, a
roar like thunder came from the crater, and a huge cloud shot up into
the clear sky, to curve over like a tree, and as they turned and fled
once more, a rain of ashes commenced falling. The darkness of which
they had had so terrible an experience, threatened to shut them in high
up on that mountain slope, while at any moment in their retreat they
were liable to come upon one of the openings that ran deep down into the
volcano's fiery core.