We hurried out with drawn swords in our hands. No enemies confronted us, however, but a weird and awe-inspiring sight met our gaze. Never, as long as I live, shall I forget that really terrible panorama.
The old extinct volcano had suddenly burst forth into renewed activity. After perhaps thousands of years of quiescence, the awful igneous powers of Nature had by some occult process in her dread laboratory been kindled anew. Through vast fissures in the earth’s crust clouds of steam were pouring forth, with sulphureous and other gases in clouds; while torrents of ashes, lava, mud, and stones were shot high into the air, darkening the very sun.
The pirates had all fled, and had taken the bloodhounds with them. There could be no doubt about that. In their panic they had completely forgotten our existence, and had only thought of saving their own wretched lives. What a mercy it was that we were free of our bonds when the crisis came!
I think it occurred instinctively to us all that this was only the commencement of some vast and terrible convulsion of nature, and that the sooner we got clear of the crater and its surroundings the less chance there would be of being overwhelmed by torrents of boiling lava and showers of stones, or of being suffocated by clouds of ashes and the fumes of poisonous gases.
Picking our way carefully, therefore, through the masses of fallen rock which strewed the terrace, we made our way under Ned’s guidance to the little pathway which we knew led out from this inaccessible spot into the open country.
I was rather alarmed lest we should meet with some of the pirates here, who, I conjectured, might be in hiding among the adjacent rocks; but fortunately my fears were groundless, and we emerged from the tortuous pathway without having encountered any obstacles.
Ned paused for a moment, and looked about him keenly.
The light, as the reader may suppose, was exceedingly deceptive, and the landscape had a darkened, ghastly aspect, as if an eclipse of the sun were in progress.
Another violent earthquake at this moment shook the ground, making us stagger like drunken men and nearly lose our feet. I distinctly saw a huge fissure yawn on the slope of a hill near us. This was a new danger; we might be swallowed up.
All this time, the volcanic forces were furiously at work, and the sounds which proceeded from the dread crater seemed to me to be growing louder and more threatening every moment. The atmosphere too was becoming more deadly and pestilential, and once or twice I felt as if I should have fainted, and I clung to Ned Burton’s stalwart arm for support.