"It never rains but it pours" is a well-known proverb which finds
frequent illustration in the experience of almost every one. At all
events Verkimier had reason to believe in the truth of it at that time,
for adventures came down on him, as it were, in a sort of deluge, more
or less astounding, insomuch that his enthusiastic spirit, bathing, if
we may say so, in an ocean of scientific delight, pronounced Sumatra to
be the very paradise of the student of nature.
We have not room in this volume to follow him in the details of his
wonderful experiences, but we must mention one adventure which he had on
the very day after the tiger-incident, because it very nearly had the
effect of separating him from his travelling companions.
Being deaf, as we have said--owing to the explosion of his revolver in
the hole--but not necessarily dumb, the professor, after one or two
futile attempts to hear and converse, deemed it wise to go to bed and
spend the few conscious minutes that might precede sleep in watching Van
der Kemp, who kindly undertook to skin his tiger for him. Soon the
self-satisfied man fell into a sweet infantine slumber, and dreamed of
tigers, in which state he gave vent to sundry grunts, gasps, and
half-suppressed cries, to the immense delight of Moses, who sat watching
him, indulging in a running commentary suggestive of the recent event,
and giving utterance now and then to a few imitative growls by way of
enhancing the effect of the dreams!
"Look! look! Massa Nadgel, he's twitchin' all ober. De tiger's comin'
to him now."
"Looks like it, Moses."
"Yes--an', see, he grip de 'volver--no, too soon, or de tiger's hoed
away, for he's stopped twitchin'!--dare; de tiger comes agin!"
A gasp and clenching of the right hand seemed to warrant this
assumption. Then a yell rang through the hut; Moses displayed all, and
more than all his teeth, and the professor, springing up on one elbow,
glared fearfully.
"I'n't it awrful?" inquired Moses in a low tone. The professor awoke
mentally, recognised the situation, smiled an imbecile smile, and sank
back again on his pillow with a sigh of relief.
After that, when the skinning of the tiger was completed, the dreams
appeared to leave him, and all his comrades joined him in the land of
Nod. He was first to awake when daylight entered their hut the
following morning, and, feeling in a fresh, quiescent state of mind
after the excitement of the preceding night, he lay on his back, his
eyes fixed contentedly on the grand tiger-skin which hung on the
opposite wall.
By degrees his eyes grew wearied of that object, and he allowed them to
travel languidly upwards and along the roof until they rested on the
spot directly over his head, where they became fixed, and, at the same
time, opened out to a glare, compared to which all his previous glaring
was as nothing--for there, in the thatch, looking down upon him, was the
angular head of a huge python. The snake was rolled up in a tight coil,
and had evidently spent the night within a yard of the professor's head!
Being unable to make out what sort of snake it was, and fearing that it
might be a poisonous one, he crept quietly from his couch, keeping his
eyes fixed on the reptile as he did so. One result of this mode of
action was that he did not see where he was going, and inadvertently
thrust one finger into Moses' right eye, and another into his open
mouth. The negro naturally shut his mouth with a snap, while the
professor opened his with a roar, and in another moment every man was on
his feet blinking inquiringly.
"Look! zee snake!" cried the professor, when Moses released him.
"We must get him out of that," remarked Van der Kemp, as he quietly made
a noose with a piece of rattan, and fastened it to the end of a long
pole. With the latter he poked the creature up, and, when it had
uncoiled sufficiently, he slipped the noose deftly over its head.
"Clear out, friends," he said, looking round.
All obeyed with uncommon promptitude except the professor, who valiantly
stood his ground. Van der Kemp pulled the python violently down to the
floor, where it commenced a tremendous scuffle among the chairs and
posts. The hermit kept its head off with the pole, and sought to catch
its tail, but failed twice. Seeing this the professor caught the tail
as it whipped against his legs, and springing down the steps so
violently that he snapped the cord by which the hermit held it, and drew
the creature straight out--a thick monster full twelve feet long, and
capable of swallowing a dog or a child.
"Out of zee way!" shouted the professor, making a wild effort to swing
the python against a tree, but the tail slipped from his grasp, the
professor fell, and the snake went crashing against a log, under which
it took refuge.
Nigel, who was nearest to it, sprang forward, fortunately caught its
tail, and, swinging it and himself round with such force that it could
not coil up at all, dashed it against a tree. Before it could recover
from the shock, Moses had caught up a hatchet and cut its head off with
one blow. The tail wriggled for a few seconds, and the head gaped once
or twice, as if in mild surprise at so sudden a finale.
"Zat is strainch--very strainch," slowly remarked the professor, as,
still seated on the ground, he solemnly noted these facts.
"Not so _very_ strange, after all," said Van der Kemp; "I've seen the
head of many a bigger snake cut off at one blow."
"Mine frond, you mistake me. It is zee vorking of physical law in zee
spiritual vorld zat perplexes me. Moses has cut zee brute in two--
physical fact, substance can be divided. Zee two parts are still alife,
zerfore, zee life--zee spirit--has also been divided!"
"It is indeed very strange," said Nigel, with a laugh. "Stranger still
that you may cut a worm into several parts, and the life remains in
each, but, strangest of all, that you should sit on the ground,
professor, instead of rising up, while you philosophise. You are not
hurt, I hope--are you?"
"I razer zink I am," returned the philosopher with a faint smile; "mine
onkle, I zink, is spraint."
This was indeed true, and it seemed as if the poor man's wanderings were
to be, for a time at least, brought to an abrupt close. Fortunately it
was found that a pony could be procured at that village, and, as they
had entered the borders of the mountainous regions, and the roads were
more open and passable than heretofore, it was resolved that the
professor should ride until his ankle recovered.
We must now pass over a considerable portion of time and space, and
convey the reader, by a forced march, to the crater of an active
volcano. By that time Verkimier's ankle had recovered and the pony had
been dismissed. The heavy luggage, with the porters, had been left in
the low grounds, for the mountain they had scaled was over 10,000 feet
above the sea-level. Only one native from the plain below accompanied
them as guide, and three of their porters whose inquiring minds tempted
them to make the ascent.
At about 10,000 feet the party reached what the natives called the dempo
or edge of the volcano, whence they looked down into the sawah or
ancient crater, which was a level space composed of brown soil
surrounded by cliffs, and lying like the bottom of a cup 200 feet below
them. It had a sulphurous odour, and was dotted here and there with
clumps of heath and rhododendrons. In the centre of this was a cone
which formed the true--or modern--crater. On scrambling up to the lip
of the cone and looking down some 300 feet of precipitous rock they
beheld what seemed to be a pure white lake set in a central basin of 200
feet in diameter. The surface of this lakelet smoked, and although it
reflected every passing cloud as if it were a mirror, it was in reality
a basin of hot mud, the surface of which was about thirty feet below its
rim.
"You will soon see a change come over it," said the hermit, as the party
gazed in silent admiration at the weird scene.
He had scarcely spoken, when the middle of the lake became intensely
black and scored with dark streaks. This, though not quite obvious at
first from the point where they stood, was caused by the slow formation
of a great chasm in the centre of the seething lake of mud. The lake
was sinking into its own throat. The blackness increased. Then a dull
sullen roar was heard, and next moment the entire lake upheaved, not
violently, but in a slow, majestic manner some hundreds of feet into the
air, whence it fell back into its basin with an awful roar which
reverberated and echoed from the rocky walls of the caldron like the
singing of an angry sea. An immense volume of steam--the motive power
which had blown up the lake--was at the same time liberated and
dissipated in the air.
The wave-circles died away on the margin of the lake, and the placid,
cloud-reflecting surface was restored until the geyser had gathered
fresh force for another upheaval.
"Amazing!" exclaimed Nigel, who had gazed with feelings of awe at this
curious exhibition of the tremendous internal forces with which the
Creator has endowed the earth.
"Vonderful!" exclaimed the professor, whose astonishment was such, that
his eyebrows rose high above the rim of his huge blue binoculars.
Moses, to whom such an exhibition of the powers of nature was familiar,
was, we are sorry to say, not much impressed, if impressed at all!
Indeed he scarcely noticed it, but watched, with intense teeth-and-gum
disclosing satisfaction, the faces of two of the native porters who had
never seen anything of the kind before, and whose terrified expressions
suggested the probability of a precipitate flight when their trembling
limbs became fit to resume duty.
"Will it come again soon?" asked Nigel, turning to Van der Kemp.
"Every fifteen or twenty minutes it goes through that process all day
and every day," replied the hermit.
"But, if I may joodge from zee stones ant scoriae around," said the
professor, "zee volcano is not always so peaceful as it is joost now."
"You are right. About once in every three years, and sometimes oftener,
the crops of coffee, bananas, rice, etcetera, in this region are quite
destroyed by sulphur-rain, which covers everything for miles around the
crater."
"Hah! it vould be too hote a place zis for us, if zat vas to happin
joost now," remarked Verkimier with a smile.
"It cannot be far off the time now, I should think," said Van der Kemp.
All this talk Moses translated, and embellished, to the native porters
with the solemn sincerity of a true and thorough-paced hypocrite. He
had scarcely finished, and was watching with immense delight the
changeful aspect of their whitey-green faces, when another volcanic fit
came on, and the deep-toned roar of the coming explosion was heard. It
was so awesome that the countenance even of Van der Kemp became graver
than usual. As for the two native porters, they gazed and trembled.
Nigel and the professor also gazed with lively expectation. Moses--we
grieve to record it--hugged himself internally, and gloated over the two
porters.
Another moment and there came a mighty roar. Up went the mud-lake
hundreds of feet into the air; out came the steam with the sound of a
thousand trombones, and away went the two porters, head over heels, down
the outer slope of the cone and across the sawah as if the spirit of
evil were after them.
There was no cause, however, for alarm. The mud-lake, falling back into
its native cup, resumed its placid aspect and awaited its next upheaval
with as much tranquillity as if it had never known disturbance in the
past, and were indifferent about the future.
That evening our travellers encamped in close proximity to the crater,
supped on fowls roasted in an open crevice whence issued steam and
sulphurous smells, and slept with the geyser's intermittent roar
sounding in their ears and re-echoing in their dreams.