"Right about and go back," ordered Eric. "We've got to find the rest of them!"
"Beg your pardon, sir, but I can't."
"Why not?"
"There's a Niagerer of stuff comin' down the mounting, sir, and no one could stand up agin it for a minnit."
"Shout, then, and try if you can hear the others."
The sailor shouted, and then called to Eric,
"Yes, sir, there's an answerin' hail." Then, a moment later, "They say everything's all right. Four of them's there, sir, and Duncan's come around."
The rushing "whoosh" of the ash-slide began to lessen, and presently, gallantly plowing through the still sliding pumice, came the first sailor. The rope was knotted and the party went on. A quarter of an hour later they reached the cannery. The Redondo was lying anchored off the cannery wharf and Eric managed to attract the attention of the crew and get them to launch their boat. The boat pulled in as close to the beach as possible, until it was fast in the ash, then a line was thrown to the shore and the boat pulled in, though the last fifteen feet were like thick porridge. The seven men were brought along the beach and returned to the vessel. Not a sign remained of the trail the party had made on its outward trip.
It had taken three hours for the rescue, and as soon as the eight men reached the vessel, they gave way. Even Eric was compelled to put himself in the hands of the ship's surgeon. The doctors, one from the ship and one from the village, had been working night and day. Hollow-eyed and unsleeping, they continued their task of reviving people suffocated by the fumes or strangled with ashes. More than one worker had collapsed utterly as the result of an unceasing fight against the volcanic fiery rain.
In the afternoon of that third day the sky began to clear and by three o'clock objects became dimly visible. Absolute dark gave place to an orange-brown light, under which, every object, cloaked in a mask of ashes, looked horribly unfamiliar. It was like waking into a new world where nothing would ever be the same.