In the corner apart Gwen and I held each the other’s hand, and sought each other’s eyes. And in the bliss that was mine I thanked God, nearly sparing a blessing for the great Beast who still prowled below, for how but for him should I have come into my kingdom of delight? So in happiness that even the great smoke pall could not overshadow we sat to watch the day die, and the blood-red glow of the mountain wax scarlet on the dark cloud above us, while the pulse of the undying fires vibrated across the heavens after each succeeding roar and shudder of the melting rocks.
As we watched the travail of the hills, across the edge of the crater where it was lowest in the lap of the peak, a thin line showed. Faint it was at first, then thickening to a broad scarlet, where the range of ringing rocks dipped lowest. For seconds it hung there, a red bar of palpitating, blood-like flame. Then with a roar it broke over the barrier and swept on headlong down the spur of the hill, engulfing the smaller rocks, and laving the bases of the larger ones that stemmed its current island-like.
After the first mad burst the roaring spate of fire slowed on a slighter slope; then rolled massively, grimly down upon the glacier head through the vale of granite. As the lava drained to the bottom level of the rent in the crater the flow lessened. Finally it ceased. Ere half-a-mile of the distance between the orifice and the glacier had been covered the crimson glow began to fade. The surface of the flood dulled to a dark crimson, then to a living blackness as of velvet. The crest of the advancing flood sank down sluggishly and stayed, its bosom curving menacingly, the advance guard of an army irresistible.
A flaring pillar of flame-dyed, guttering stone shot skyward again, the splashes of it thudding about us heavily. One molten lump, stiffening as it fell, smote on our tarpaulin roof, slashing through it to the stone floor. A shriek went up from Lady Delahay as she shrank back from its still living glow, and the tarpaulin burst into sudden flame. A dozen willing hands tore it down and wrapped it together, smothering the fire in the folds. Poor little Fidget—utterly cowed by terror fast following on terror—came slinking toward me, and nestling in between Gwen and myself, hid her little nose deferentially in my sleeve. My darling gave her a little friendly pat, and I cuddled the little dog gratefully myself. But a shudder followed fast on the caress as I thought of what might have been when she had been kicking and screaming in that death-trap in the cleft.
We peered down at the Beast. He was still rambling restlessly about, snuffling now and again at the cliff-foot, aimlessly pawing and snatching at the boulders that banked the rock face. Once just below us, where the sheer crag melted into a more slanting angle, he rose clumsily upon his hind limbs, leant forward, and stretched his head toward us, pricking out his long tongue. As it licked across his lips the jag of broken tin flashed redly in the glow, and we could hear it grate as his teeth closed.
His head reached up to within forty yards of us as he swarmed against the cliff, and Garlicke aimed carefully for his eye. The bullet only grazed the unscarred eyebrow, giving it a curious uniformity with the other one. The brute merely blinked impatiently as the ball thudded on the shell-like lid, but did not twitch a muscle. As it splayed out its feet on the bank of loose stones, seeking purchase to strain higher, the rubble gave way, and it rolled back with a thump upon its side. Its green belly shone a loathsome pink in the glare from above, and for a moment it lay prone, its great legs kicking convulsively. Then with an effort it righted itself, and crawled sulkily away to resume its sentinelship at the cliff-foot. It continued to ramble to and fro unceasingly, casting ever greedy eyes at us, the hideous snout lifted to the breeze, the long tongue lolling from between the yellow teeth.
Down in the hollow a growing sheet of water spread. On it the ship floated lopsided and aimlessly. Long widening ripples welled from where the cleft was submerged, and a steam-cloud was hazy upon the surface. The hull was all untrue upon its keel with the shifting of the ballast, and as the ripples swung her, drifted in slow circles. With her lost topmast she looked like nothing so much as a wounded wild duck. The fire glow gave the increasing water the effect of blood issuing from a wound in the bosom of earth. On it were reflected crimson throbs from the arch of ruddy fog; they were as pulses across an opened vein.
Another quiver rocked our pyramid of granite, and the glacier was riven across. The following roar gushed down to us deafeningly. The lane showed dark and mysterious across the ice-field, clean cut as by an axe blow, and this new-made cañon ran with scarce an obstacle nearly to the foot of our refuge. We seemed to get a vision, swift and fleeting as a lightning flash, of the hidden mysteries of the ice. I could have declared I saw the yellow facade of the buried temple show up against a black background of rock. Then as the flying lava sank back again into the bath of fire, darkness closed over this half-seen apparition.
Once again the red bar glowed across the dip in the crater brim. For one tense moment it hovered, and then crashed down upon its dying forerunner, covering it anew with living fire. Along this smoothed path it rushed headlong, leaped down from the lava crest upon the stones, and rolled with measured grandeur down the groove the earthquake had riven. Blocks of ice, fallen from the glacier sides, lay in its course and were swallowed in a moment. Like the roar of a bursting shell the steam bubbles smashed to the surface, and floated up in white circling clouds to lose themselves in the fog above. Unhalting the torrent ran, engulfing all before it; stones, ice, and the rock itself disappeared. Then in slow-growing blackness it stayed, sank and died, even as its predecessor. But this time the wave reached to the end of the fissure, and the heat of it beat up to us, lapping us in a bath of sultry, stifling air.
The Beast shifted his sentry walk uneasily, stretching out his neck toward the lava wall, and snouting at the warm draught suspiciously. For a moment he seemed to waver. His nostrils dilated curiously. Then he glanced toward the rising lake, and we thought he would give over his seeking for our lives. As he hesitated, now looking lakeward, now peering up to us, another crash resounded from the mountain. Like the tearing of a sheet of paper the glacier cañon split further shoreward, and opened beneath his very feet. Half his bulk rolled into the cleft thus riven; his tail and one hind limb disappeared. Slipping and spurring frantically he managed to support himself on his huge elbows, but lost ground with every rock of the shuddering earth. The cleft yawned, then half closed again. Thus as in a vice he was held, his leg and tail mangled in the nip of the fissure. He looked like some stupendous stoat caught in a gigantic gin.