“Say, are you learned?” asked Ambrose. “Can you read Latin?”
“Indifferent well,” said I. “But why? Hath Doctor Copicus, peradventure, a charity-school in his island?”
He laughed his singular laugh. “Charity-school,” said he, “is good! Yea, we shall put you to school! And do you see to it that you be industrious. Behold the marks of the rod!”
And, suddenly baring his forearm, he stretched it forth before me. The flesh was scarred with the marks of heated irons!
“Merciful Heaven!” cried I.
“Take warning, then!” said Ambrose, “take warning!” and covered his arm again.
This put a fear upon me, and I went on in a heavy muse. Suddenly I was aroused sufficiently! There had come, on a sudden, a most dreadful roaring sound, long drawn out, and proceeding, as it should seem, from the abysms of the earth: as if the earth had given tongue, like a great, savage wild beast, and was ready to open her jaws and swallow us in a moment!
Shaking as with an ague, I asked him what it was.
“You are pale,” said he, “nor do I wonder, if this is the first time you have heard it. ’Tis the voice of the Mount of Dread.”
“A volcan!” cried I, with swift understanding, “there is, then, a volcan in the island. But where? I see no height of a great mountain.”