THE LAKE OF FIRE
Drew was all animation in an instant at the new hope that sprang up
within him with its offer of possible safety for his companion and
himself.
"Why didn't I think of it before?" he repeated, his voice shaken with
excitement.
"You didn't think of it before, because you were working like a slave.
No man can work like that and think of anything but what he is doing.
Oh, Allen, won't it be great if you are right?"
"I'm going to see if I am right," he replied.
"How can you tell?" she asked divining that he was fumbling at his
pocket.
"In this way," he answered, drawing out the oilskin bag that contained
his precious matches.
He struck a match and held it aloft.
At first the flame mounted straight up in the air. Then an instant
later it was deflected and stood out at a distinct angle from the stick.
"See," cried Allen jubilantly. "There's a current of air in the cave.
It's too slight for us to feel, but the flame feels it. If we were
sealed up utterly in the cave, the air would be still. Somewhere the
air is coming in from the outside world and it's up to us to find out
where."
"Thank God!" murmured Ruth tremulously.
In the sudden transition from despair to hope, they took little account
of the difficulties they might have to overcome before they reached
that other entrance--or the exit, from their point of view--which they
had reason to believe existed. But as their first jubilation subsided
somewhat, a soberer view began to thrust itself upon them.
Admitting that there was an exit, what guarantee had they of reaching
it? Suppose a fathomless gulf barred their way? Suppose the passage
narrowed to a point too small for them to thrust themselves through?
Suppose when the coveted exit should at last be found it should prove
to be in the ceiling of the cave instead of the side, and hopelessly
out of reach?
But they quickly dismissed these dismal forebodings. Those problems
could wait for solution until they faced them. The present at least
was illumined by hope.
"Come along, Ruth," cried Allen gaily. "Pack up your trunks and let's
be moving."
"Only too gladly," the girl responded, falling into his mood. "I never
did care much for this place anyway."
But suddenly a reflection came to her.
"How are we to find our way in this pitch darkness?" she asked. "I
don't know how many matches you have with you, but at the most they
can't last long. And the time may come when a match would be more
precious than a diamond."
Drew took out his bag again, and, taking the greatest precautions not
to drop one, counted the matches by the sense of touch.
"Just thirty-two," he announced when he had counted them twice.
"Only thirty-two!" echoed Ruth. "And we may need a hundred and
thirty-two before we get to the other mouth of the cave."
For a moment Drew pondered.
"You're right, as always, Ruth," he agreed. "We can't depend on the
matches alone. We'll have to get something that will serve as a torch.
While I was digging, I remember I came across many branches of trees
that had been carried down by the slide in its rush. We'll see if we
can't make some torches out of them."
He set lustily to work and soon had as many as ten good-sized sticks
that promised to supply his need. He was afraid that not being
seasoned wood they would prove difficult to light. But there proved to
be a resinous quality in the wood that atoned for its greenness, and
before long he had a torch that burned steadily though rather murkily.
"Eureka!" he cried waving it aloft.
"Good for you, Allen," applauded Ruth. "Now give me the rest of those
sticks to carry and you go ahead with the lighted torch."
"I'll carry them myself," he protested.
"No you won't," she said decidedly, at the same time gathering them up
in her arms. "You'll have the torch in one hand and you need to have
the other free for emergencies."
He recognized the common sense of this, but found it hard to let her do
it.
"It's too much like the Indians," he said. "You know that with them
the buck carries his dignity, while his squaw carries everything else."
"But I'm not your squaw," slipped saucily from Ruth's lips before she
could realize the possible significance of her remark.
"Not yet," replied Allen daringly, wanting to bite his tongue out a
moment later for having taken advantage of her slip.
"But let's hurry now, Ruth," he went on hastily to cover their mutual
confusion. "Follow close in my steps and don't keep more than two or
three feet behind me at any time."
They set off on the unknown path whose end meant to them either
deliverance or death. The chances were against them, but their hearts
were high and their courage steadfast.
They had need of all their fortitude, for they had not advanced forty
paces before danger menaced them.
Drew holding his torch high so as to throw its light as far ahead as
possible, stepped on what seemed to be a crooked stick in the path.
Instantly the stick sprang to life, and a powerful, slimy coil wound
itself around the man's leg as high as the knee.
His first impulse was to spring back. His next was to grind down with
crushing force on the squirming thing beneath his heel. The second
impulse conquered the first and he stood like a statue while a cold
sweat broke out all over his body.
For he had realized by the feel that it was the reptile's head that was
beneath his heel and must be kept there at all costs until the life was
crushed out of it.
Gradually the writhings grew feebler, until at last the coils relaxed
and fell in a heap about his foot.
"What is it Allen?" asked Ruth in alarm at his sudden stop and rigid
pose. "Do you see anything?"
"There's no danger," he assured her, though his voice was not quite
steady. "I must have stepped on a lizard or something like that, and
it gave me a start."
He kicked the mangled reptile out of the path, but not before Ruth's
horrified glance had seen that it was no lizard but something far more
deadly.
Here was a new terror added to the others. For all they knew there
might be a colony of the reptiles in the cave. And in that
semi-tropical region, the chances were vastly in favor of their being
poisonous. At all events it behooved them to advance with redoubled
caution.
They kept a wary lookout for anything that looked like a crooked stick
after that, and their progress, already slow, became still slower as
they went on.
Before long they came to a place where the cave seemed to divide into
three separate passageways. Two of them had nothing to distinguish
them from each other, but in the third they distinguished a faint light
in the distance.
"The blessed light!" exclaimed Ruth fervently.
"I guess that's the path to take, all right," exulted Drew. "In all
probability that light comes from the outlet of the cave. Hurrah for
us, Ruth!"
Ruth echoed his enthusiasm, and they accelerated their pace. The hope
that they had cherished seemed now about to become certainty.
But the way was rougher now, and at one place they had to make a long
detour. But they made no complaint. As long as no impassable barrier
of rock loomed up before them they could feel that they were getting
nearer and nearer to freedom and life.
But before long both became conscious of a steadily-growing heat in the
air of the cave. The perspiration flowed from them in streams. At
first they were inclined to attribute this to their strenuous exertions
and the mental strain under which they were laboring.
"Strange it should be so frightfully hot," remarked Drew, as he stopped
for a moment to wipe his brow.
"It's no wonder," responded Ruth. "It's hot enough on this island even
when you're in the outer air, and it would naturally be worse still in
this confined place."
"But we didn't feel that way ten minutes ago," objected Drew.
"We've done a good deal of walking since then," said Ruth, though
rather doubtfully. "But let's get along, Allen. I'm just crazy to get
to the outlet."
They were about to resume their journey, when a great flame of fire
leaped to the very roof of the cave about a hundred yards in front of
them.
They stopped abruptly, and in the smoky light of the torch both of
their faces were white as chalk, as they faced each other with a
question in their eyes.
"Fire!" gasped the man.
"Yes," assented Ruth quietly but bitterly. "What we thought was
daylight is nothing other than fire."
"Shall we keep on?" debated Allen.
"We're so close that we might as well," advised Ruth. "Perhaps we may
be able to get around it somehow."
They went forward, though with excessive care, and a moment later stood
on the brink of the most awe-inspiring spectacle they had ever
witnessed.
In a deep pit perhaps six hundred feet in circumference was a lake of
liquid fire! The molten lava twisted and writhed as though a thousand
serpents were coiling and uncoiling. A vapor rose from the fiery mass
that glowed with a hideous radiance in all the colors of the spectrum.
At intervals, huge geysers of living flame spurted up from the surface
to a height of many feet and fell back in a glistening of molten gold
and coruscating diamonds.
It was a scene that if it could have been viewed with safety would have
drawn tourists in thousands from every corner of the globe.
But to the two spectators the thought that they were looking on one of
the marvels of the world brought nothing but desolation and despair.
"This must be the source of the lava flow when the whale's hump is in
eruption," said Drew in a toneless voice.
"I suppose so," said Ruth in a voice that for dreariness was a replica
of his own. "Do you think it's possible for us to get around it in any
way, Allen?"
"Not a chance in the world," answered Drew. "You can see that the
passage we followed ends at the brink of the crater. From there on,
there's just a wall of solid rock. The only thing left for us to do is
to get back to the place where the cave split into three parts."
They retraced their steps with hearts that grew heavier at every step.
The passage that had seemed most promising had yielded nothing but
bitter disappointment. Only two other chances remained, and who could
tell that they led anywhere but to death?
At the juncture of the passageways, they hesitated for a moment only.
There was absolutely nothing to indicate that they should take one of
the remaining two paths rather than the other. Impenetrable blackness
covered both.
"Which shall it be, Ruth?" asked Drew.
"You do the choosing, Allen," Ruth responded.
At a venture he took the one leading to the left, but had not proceeded
more than a hundred feet when he stopped abruptly on the very brink of
a chasm that spanned the entire width of the passage-way. There was no
ledge however narrow to furnish a foothold along its sides. Once more
they were absolutely blocked.
Drew checked a groan and Ruth stifled something suspiciously like a
sob. The tension under which they were was fast reaching the breaking
point.
"Never mind," said Drew, stoutly recovering himself. "There's luck in
odd numbers and the third time we win."
"First the worst, second the same, last the best of all the game,"
responded Ruth with an attempt at heartiness.
Again they went back and took the only way remaining. Upon the ending
of that passage their life or death depended.
But as they advanced steadily and no barrier interfered, their spirits
rose. Then suddenly they cried aloud in their joy, for on turning a
sharp bend in the path a rush of air almost extinguished the torch that
Drew was carrying.
A hundred feet ahead was an opening thickly covered with bushes, but
large enough to admit of forcing a passage!
Ruth dropped her load of surplus torches. Drew, grasping her arm,
hurried her along. He forced the bushes apart and pushed her through.
Then he followed. They heard a wild shout and the next minute Ruth was
sobbing in her father's arms, while Tyke--hardy grizzled old Tyke--had
thrown his arms around Allen in a bear's hug and was blubbering like a
baby.