Fire Island Part 18

But there were other things to think of first. Princ.i.p.ally, there was that important discovery to make whether they were surrounded by the sea, and to try and find this out he sought a higher point than any he had yet mounted, and, taking out his little gla.s.s, followed the face of the mist till it reached the glittering waters of the sea, and then tried to trace the coastline towards the volcano.

This he was able to do with pretty good success, but as his gla.s.s was directed to the lower and eastern slope of the mountain, he found that he was as wise as ever, for the base of the mighty cone completely shut off all view in that direction.

Turning to the mist again, he followed its edge to the west as far as he could reach, but the inequalities in the surface baulked him here, and he could not make out the sea in that direction.

He closed his little gla.s.s and turned to the mist curtain, that mysterious dim line glistening with opalescent colours, and determined as a last resource to walk quietly as close to it as he could, before the gases began to affect him, then to draw back a few yards, take a few deep inspirations, so as to fully inflate his lungs, and then rush straight through; for he argued to himself, if he could pa.s.s through once unprepared and taken by surprise, he could certainly reverse the action.

In this spirit, and so as to get a little encouragement and inspiriting for another task--in other words, so as to enjoy the feeling that a way of retreat was open to him--he walked back toward the depression along which the vapour rose, examining every step of the way, and noticing that by degrees all growth ceased as he approached, and that the ground gradually grew softer and then spongy to the tread, as if he were walking over a bog.

The air remained very clear and good to breathe as he went on nearer and nearer, seeing now that the fumes rose softly all along one jagged line such as might have been formed by the earth opening right before him.

But there was no opening. As far as he could penetrate the dim mist, the earth looked perfectly level, but the vapour rose from it as it does or appears to do from a swampy meadow on a fine autumn evening; and it was evident to him that he might try and dash through without fear of running headlong into some chasm.

Just then, as he stood gazing down at the bottom of the curtain, the idea struck him that perhaps there had been a wide rift right across to right and left; that it had been filled up by volcanic matter, and the vapour was caused by this lava or hot liquid mud slowly cooling down.

Convinced that this must be so, he had full endors.e.m.e.nt of the correctness of his theory, for on lifting one foot to go on, he found that the other was sinking slowly, and a little further investigation showed him that a faint thread of vapour was rising from the spot where his heel had been.

The meaning of this barren s.p.a.ce, and the reason for the earth feeling spongy, was plain enough now, and he knew that he was walking over so much half-fluid volcanic pitch, whose surface was slightly hardened and formed the elastic springy band.

If it gave way!

The thought was enough to make the stoutest shudder, and feeling now that his safety lay in movement, he took a few more steps towards the vapour, finding himself, before he was aware of the fact, and without the slightest mistiness being visible, within its influence.

He started away in alarm, for he was suffering from a slight attack of vertigo, which did not pa.s.s off for a minute or two, and he walked, or rather staggered, back, with the tough elastic film over which he walked now rising and falling with an undulatory motion beneath his feet.

"Only as a last resource," he muttered, as he breathed freely once more; and he could not repress a shudder as he stepped once more on solid ground, plainly enough marked by the abounding growth, and grasping fully how horrible a quagmire of hot slime was hidden by the partially hardened crust over which he had pa.s.sed.

Turning his face now toward the mountain, he hesitated for a few moments, and then determined, as the distance seemed so short, to try and do something now he was there; and in the intent of climbing a few hundred feet up its side so as to get a view beyond, he marked out what seemed to be the most open way, and started for the foot of the great slope.

CHAPTER TEN.

A NIGHT IN THE FOREST.

It required no little steady determination to attack that ascent.

Oliver's nerves had been terribly shaken by that which he had gone through. The heat was intense beneath the trees, where hardly a breath of air reached him, and it was impossible to keep off the sense of loneliness and awe brought on by the knowledge that he was in the home of Nature's most terrible forces, and that the huge mountain in front, now looking so calm and majestic, might at any moment begin to belch forth showers of white-hot stones and glowing scoria, as it poured rivers of liquid lava down its sides. At any moment too he knew that he might step into some bottomless rift, or be overcome by gases, without calculating such minor chances as losing his way in the pathless wilderness through which he was struggling, or coming in contact with some dangerous beast.

But he set his teeth and toiled on, dragging th.o.r.n.y creepers aside, climbing over half-rotten tree-trunks, whose mouldering bark gave way, and set at liberty myriads of virulent ants. Once or twice he grasped leaves which were worse than the home-growing nettle. But he struggled on, though, with the feeling growing stronger, that if he got through the patch of forest before dark, it would be as much as he could manage, for the difficulties increased at every step.

Suddenly he stopped short, and caught at the nearest tree-trunk to save himself from falling, for the giddiness returned, and he stood panting, trying to master the horrible sensation by drawing a deeper breath.

Then he clung more tightly to the tree, and knew what this sense of vertigo meant; for it was no vapour that had overcome him, but the sensation of the earth heaving beneath his feet, with a strange quivering, as if some vast force were pa.s.sing, and a dull muttering, as of subterranean thunder, made the tree quiver in his grasp.

A few seconds later, as he waited for a repet.i.tion of the earth-tremor, knowing now full well that he had for the first time experienced a couple of earthquake shocks, there came from away in front a deep heavy boom, following a strange rus.h.i.+ng sound, evidently from the summit of the volcano--the huge safety-valve from which the pent-up forces of the earth escaped to the open air.

Oliver struggled forward a few yards into a clearer spot, where he could just catch a glimpse of the crater of the mountain, and, as he had expected, there was the great globe-like cloud riven into rags of vapour, while dark-looking bodies were falling in various directions about the summit.

As he gazed, the rain of falling fragments ceased, and the torn-up flecks of cloud seemed to be drawn slowly together again by the currents of air on high, first one and then another coalescing, as the tiny globules of spilt mercury glide one into another, till all are taken up.

And it was so here, the mysterious attraction blended the flying vapours into one great whole, which floated above the mouth of the burning mountain.

"And I might have been somewhere on the slope, when that burst of stones was falling," thought Oliver. "Still, I might climb up a hundred times, and no eruption occur. I'm getting cowardly, instead of being accustomed to the place."

He smiled to himself as he marked the top of the mountain, and aimed as straight as he could for its side, before plunging again into the bewildering maze of trees, whose wide-spreading foliage made all beneath a subdued shade.

But a dozen steps had not been taken before he stopped short, with his heart beating, and listened eagerly, for a distant shout had fallen upon his ear, coming as he felt sure from behind him, and to the right.

Then there was utter silence for a few seconds, before a second shout arose, to be heard plainly enough, but away to his left.

His heart sank again, and the hope died out. That was no cry uttered by one of his companions, but came from a savage, or some wild beast, which he could not say, but he suspected that it must be from one of the apes of which they had seen specimens that morning.

There it was again, rather a human cry, such as a boy might give vent to in a wood, when calling to his fellows, and a few moments afterwards the sound was repeated.

Whatever animals they were who called, they were answering each other, and certainly coming nearer.

The remembrance of the strange-looking face he had seen peering through the leaves directly after the great nut had struck Wriggs, came back to Oliver as he resumed his arduous journey, now finding the way easier where the bigger trees grew, now more toilsome where there was an opening caused by the fall of some forest monarch, which had rent a pa.s.sage for the suns.h.i.+ne, with the consequence that a dense ma.s.s of lower growth had sprung up.

In these openings, in spite of heat and weariness, the young naturalist forgot all his troubles for a few brief moments in his wonder and delight, till the knowledge that he must push on roused him once more to action. For there before him were in all their beauty the various objects which he had come thousands of miles to seek. Beetles with wing cases as of burnished metal crawled over leaves and clung to stems; grotesque locust-like creatures sprang through the air, through which darted birds which in their full vigour and perfect plumage looked a hundred times more beautiful than the dried specimens to which he was accustomed in museums and private collections. Here from a dry twig darted a kingfisher of dazzling blue, not upon a fish, but upon a beetle, which it bore off in triumph. Away overhead, with a roar like a distant train, sped a couple of rhinoceros hornbills, to be succeeded by a flash of noisy, harsh-shrieking paroquets, all gorgeous in green, yellow, crimson and blue, ready to look wonderingly at the intruder upon their domain, and then begin busily climbing and swinging among the twigs of a bough, whose hidden fruit they hunted out from among the leaves.

One tree close at hand was draped with a creeper of convolvulus-like growth, hanging its trumpet-shaped flowers in every direction, ready for a number of glittering gem-like birds to hover before them, and probe the nectaries for honey or tiny insects, with their long curved bills.

So rapid in their movements were some of these, that their insect-like buzzing flight was almost invisible to the watcher, till they hovered before a blossom in the full suns.h.i.+ne, when their burnished, metallic plumage, shot with purple, crimson, and gold, flashed in the sun's rays, and literally dazzled the eye.

Oliver was in the home of the sun-birds, the brilliant little creatures which answer in the old world to the humming-birds of the new, with their crests and gorgets of vivid scales.

"It's grand, it's wonderful," he muttered, with a sigh. "But I must get on."

He forced his way through these openings, with the birds so tame that he could easily have knocked them down with a stick, or caught them with a b.u.t.terfly-net. But leaving his collecting for a future time, he pressed on, satisfied with the knowledge that he was in the midst of nature's wonders, for the farther he progressed the more was he impressed with the conviction that he and his companions had happened upon a place which exceeded the most vivid paintings of his imagination, so rich did it reveal itself in all they desired.

The progress he made was slower and slower, for he was nearly at the end of his forces, and the matted-together tangle seemed in his weakness to grow more dense. Where there was opening enough overhead he could see that the sun was sinking rapidly, and he knew that it would be dark almost directly it had disappeared.

"It is hopeless," he said to himself; "I shall never get out to-night;"

and with the idea forced upon him that he must be on the look-out for a resting-place, or an opening where he could light a fire, and, if possible, at the foot of some tree, in whose branches he could make himself a shelter, he still toiled on.

This proved to be a less difficult task, for before long, as he crept beneath the tangle of a climbing cane-like palm, he saw that it was more light ahead, and in a few minutes he reached one of the natural clearings, close to a huge short-trunked, many-branched fig. There was dead wood in plenty, shelter, and fruit of two kinds close at hand, while, greatest treasure of all, a tiny thread of water trickled among some ancient, mossy fragments of volcanic rock, filling a little basin-like pool with ample for his needs. To this he at once bowed his head and drank with avidity, sublimely unconscious of the fact that a tiny, slight, necklace-like snake was gliding over the moistened rock just overhead, and that a pair of bright gem eyes were watching his every motion from the great fig-tree, where its branches rose in a cl.u.s.ter from the trunk.

"Hah!" sighed Oliver, as he rose from his long deep drink. "What a paradise, but how awfully lonely!"

He noted then that the top of the mountain was in view, but apparently no nearer; and setting to work he soon collected enough wood for a fire, and lit it as a protection, before gathering some of the little figs and some golden yellow fruits from a kind of pa.s.sion-flower, both proving agreeable to the palate. These supplemented by the food he had in a satchel, formed a respectable meal, which he ended as the last light died out; while before him as he sat by his fire there was a great glowing ball of light high up, one which resolved itself into the cloud, evidently lit up by the glowing lava within the crater.

"A nice companion for a traveller," said Oliver, half aloud. "Now, then, for my cool lofty bedroom in the tree-fork. I wonder whether I shall sleep?"

His inner consciousness said immediately "No;" for as he made his way in among the b.u.t.tress-like roots of the tree to try and climb up, there came from within a few feet of his face a deep-toned snarling roar.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

A FIGHT WITH FATE.

"Aren't had a drop, sir. Swear I aren't," cried Smith.