“Certainly, I came for that,” responded Regan.
We began the descent. Once I paused. There was the tremor of a slight earthquake. The volcano’s breath was heavier. Under the clouds of smoke we were shaded. Cautiously we stepped from stone to stone, so much terrified that neither of us spoke.
“What are these plates?” at last said I.
They were about twelve feet in diameter, of a round, yellow and wrinkled substance, but whether vegetable, mineral or animal we could not determine.
Without a word of his intention, Regan raised his hammer of stone and struck a powerful blow upon the yellow surface by which we were standing.
The earth shuddered, the cliffs burst and cracked; the island itself leaped from the sea, and about our heads tumbled stone and pillars of rock, dust of lava, deluges of vines. An awful call of rage, a voice from the rocks, the menacing roar from the living soil sounded like the trump of doom about us. Everywhere, from all the walls of stone at once, not like thunder and not like sea—more like the bellow of the most mighty convulsion of earthquake which humanity ever knew.
Trees fell; vines entangled us. We would have fled, but there was no place to flee. The land was raging. That voice—that maddening, horrible voice!
“It’s an eye!”
Like a demon orb, great, horrifying, fusing, flashing, that eye looked at us. Those wrinkled yellow covers were the lids.
The breath was a snort of vengeance now. It was a living island! Those eyes—those awful eyes!