I shrank from their glare. I fell into the crater’s mouth. An instant I swung above a fiery depth. Regan caught my hand with mighty strength. I saw his face, defiant even then, looking up at those toppling peaks and quivering, gashed sides.
“He has only to let go. I shall be out of his way forever then!”
Even in the supreme suspense of the moment I thought I could not die and leave Isabella more happy without me.
He was going to save me. I knew he would.
But the rocks moved from him and together we rolled into the fiery crater, among sulphur and hot stones. We clung to the sides, the voice bewildering us with its roar, the breath shaking the whole surface of the volcano and of the rock. The smoke rose into a pillar above the crater. The yellow glare of the fire showed us where we were, showed us the danger on all sides.
So strange an enemy stilled our hearts and palsied our faculties. We did nothing. Entombed in a volcano, hopelessly we sank upon the sand and waited, waited for death, until the daylight had gone. It was night.
By this time the voice was still; the angry island had ceased to groan. The yellow liquid fire seethed in the cauldron; the smothering flames and smoke were often puffed into our faces.
What would it do? A mad isle had its human hate! Was all the Star alive? Had the ball a huge heart to beat in the fiery centre? Had rocks a brain and nerve to think?
“Did you believe it possible for rock and flame to look and think?” said I.
I spoke to hear my own voice. The silence of voices was as bad as the danger.