Lo! the Island of the Holy;
Hie you hither presently,
From a land of melancholy,
From a land of misery.
Straining my eyes upon the livid-looming cliffs vaulted with fire, I made out a meagre form standing upon the shore.
As the singing ceased, there came a sheet of light, a tongue of flame, that, serpent-like, wound coiling down; and then I saw the singer. ’Twas the skeleton antic lad!
For a moment, the lull in the Inferno-storm continued. Then, on a sudden, there came a stupendous loud report; and, wave upon wave, and sheet upon sheet, a sulphurous blue flame swept, coiling and writhing, down the face of the cliff, down upon the little lad!
It leapt upon him; it lapt him round in clinging, entwining wraiths; it encircled his floating hair with tongues of flame. Thus, for a moment, he stood transfigured; and then came the end!
A giant boulder crashed from the summit of the lofty cliff headlong down; and, rebounding upon a spur of rock that projected almost to the place where the lad stood, it took him upon the head, and on the instant killed him.
But this was a merciful thing. For, hard upon the falling boulder, there came an avalanche, an avalanche of molten stone!