The bellow of his agony pierced even above the thunderous roll of the mountain. The blood spurted from his sides, bathing them in a darker tinge than the flame glow. His fore-feet beat and thudded on the stones, sweeping them into ridges with the convulsions of his agony. He swung his neck across his shoulders, tearing rabidly at his wounds.
The sight was almost too much for human eyes. Gwen had already buried hers against my coat. The breathing of the sailors behind me grew stertorous, as their chests rose and fell in unconscious sympathy. Speech was taken from us by a very paralysis of horror. But worse was to come.
The fiery matter that fevered the volcano burst forth again. Again the mountain shuddered, belching forth its flames. Down the dead waves another living torrent rushed, roared in the deep channel through the glacier, and foamed—yes, foamed—into the widening split. A scream, anguish-born and like the crowded wails of ten thousand souls in torment, rose from the prisoned Beast. A pungent, choking smell of roasting flesh rose up to us. Then the red tide flowed on over the charred carrion, and burst asunder again; a gout of steaming gas shot up, sole remnant of the tissues of that enormous carcass. The stream touched and laved lightly at our refuge. Then slowly it dimmed, and the velvet surface grew up on it again. The current halted and grew still. Its force was spent.
The heat beat up to us scorchingly. We felt, but saw it not. Our faces were averted, and nausea had us by the throat. As the great Beast had died, so might we come to die, and that right soon. The realization of the matter was more than we could see and not blench. For some half-minute no one spoke, and dread hung over us thick as the cloud of cinder dust that filled the sky.
As I raised my eyes again to look on the things of earth, a broad line showed across the seaward cliffs that hedged us in. It increased visibly as I stared at it, and I knew that again the cliffs were rending between the sea and the growing pool. I leaned across and touched Janson on the shoulder, pointing silently. As he too caught sight of the rift the light of hope grew across his haggard face.
“If it cuts down to the sea——” he muttered, glancing to where our ship and the little launch wandered masterlessly about among the steam wreaths. He turned to me and pointed to them.
“Let’s get aboard, my lord. It’s only a hundred to one chance, but it might widen and give channel. Here’s only quick roasting, at any rate.”
“How about the propeller-shaft?” I queried sadly. “We shan’t be able to get steam on her.”
“That’s no matter,” he said, shaking his head impatiently. “We can get steam in the launch for a tow, or if that takes too long, ten oars in one of the boats would shift her, lopsided as she is.”
“Who’s to board her, Mr. Janson? It means swimming.”