CHAPTER XXV
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.