“No more so for us than for you,” interrupted Sam. “It’s our duty to do all we can.”
“Creation! but this is awful!” panted Darry, as he too began to fight the flames with another bucket.
“Wet your jackets—I have wet my coat,” said the professor. “And be careful of your eyes. I think we are getting out of the zone of fire,” he added, as he cast an anxious eye shoreward, where Mont Pelee was still belching forth death and destruction.
The two boys did as advised, and soon the three were working like Trojans, along with some other passengers and a number of the steamer’s crew. The Vendee was now quivering from stem to stern under her full head of steam, for the engineer had been told of what had occurred and given to understand that they must either get away or go down in that awful holocaust behind them.
Darry and Sam had just procured fresh buckets of water and were doing their best to put out a patch of fire in a coil of ropes when they heard a groan from Professor Strong, who, bucket in hand, was staggering around clutching the air. Some hot volcanic dust had taken the professor full in the face, cutting off his breath.
“The professor is overcome!” cried Darry and threw down his bucket on the instant. Sam did the same, and both leaped forward just in time to save the man from falling. The next moment Professor Strong hung limply in their arms, his eyes closed. Not a sound came from him, nor did he appear to be breathing.
“He’s dead!” muttered Sam, hoarsely. “Oh, Darry, this is the worst yet!”
CHAPTER XXIX
THE DESTRUCTION OF ST. PIERRE
And now, while Mont Pelee is in full eruption, let us go ashore and learn what was happening in the city of St. Pierre, with its twenty-five thousand inhabitants and its five thousand refugees.
There had been more than one warning that this terrible catastrophe was at hand. For a number of days outbreaks of more or less importance had occurred, which had occasioned the lava dust and the strange condition of the water encountered so far out at sea.