“Regan!”
“Here, at the right!”
A torch flared. There he was, with water and food; he had found another opening into the crater. After I had drunk the water and eaten the food we returned into the sunlight to life once more.
Looking about us at the strange rocks, we wondered at our unseeing blindness when we had walked on that half-animal surface of wrinkled, unnatural stone and had not thought it a mighty leviathan of unknown existence.
Still the cables were unbroken. We returned over the homeward way, a little apprehensive that the isle could remember as well as groan.
Once more we stood beside the waiting two, Father Renaudin and Isabella. They had seen. The island had half-reared from the sea. Its contour was changed; its rocks were broken. They had seen its peaks topple, had noted its awful voice.
For a time we feared the very soil on which we walked, but we discovered no signs of life in the continental cliffs.
After this we made no more investigations for some time, while the line of white at the far north became less and less. The mass of black and fire-streaked cloud at the south grew larger and redder.
The sun began to burn the whole day, instead of at noon only. When it rose it seemed as if a great furnace door opened on us. We stayed in the shelter of our vines and beside our lake of water.
One night we were sitting before our houses, watching the shimmer of the river where the firelight fell upon it. We heard the sound of wings; looking up at the moonless sky we saw floating black forms—huge birds, we thought. We saw their wings reflecting the light as they moved, saw their eyes shining like glass, saw faces looking wistfully down upon us!