“You’re right, Silas!” Seymour cried. “Heaven grant she clears the entrance!”
Ten seconds later, the Seal, rushing madly forward, cleared by a fraction of an inch the mighty rocks which guarded the entrance, and plunged into the darkness of a canyon.
As she did so, Haverly switched on the searchlight.
Thirty feet above her hung a dense, poisonous cloud of smoke, blotting out the light of the sun like an immense black curtain, and making the canyon dark as midnight.
The rugged walls of the canyon flashed past in a gleaming line as the electric light danced upon them, and around the vessel a shower of ashes began to fall, converting the spotless paint of the deck into a mass of sooty-grey blotches.
Boom! A thunderous explosion reverberated down the canyon, shaking the instruments in the turret lockers, and a burst of flame leapt up some distance ahead, its vivid crimson glow paling the beams of the great searchlight.
It died away in a moment,
“A volcano!” gasped the scientist. Then the Seal, narrowly escaping collision with the rocky wall, swept out of the gorge.
Before them, seen dimly through the falling ashes, lay the black and silent waters of a great lake; and, in the midst, its fiery crest glowing like the mouth of the Pit, towered a mighty volcano.