“I ought to get up to the top in two or three hours,” he thought, as he mentally mapped out his course, seeing nothing likely to hinder him but rough blocks of stone dotted about in all directions. Nothing in themselves, but ominous of aspect when he took into consideration the fact that they must have been hurled upward from the mountain, and fallen back on the slope in all probability white-hot.
“One will have warning,” he thought, “and there may be no more fall to-day.”
Finishing his last mouthful, he took out an india-rubber cup, and stooping down, filled it from the trickling course, raised it to his lips, and then spurted out a mouthful in disgust, for it was hot, bitter, salt, and had a most objectionable odour.
“Ugh!” he ejaculated, “mustn’t depend on you.” Then giving another glance round, he shouldered his gun, and commenced the ascent, leaving all vegetation behind him, and soon finding that his way lay over loose scoria and finely-powdered pumice, into which his feet sank at every step.
But as the difficulties and steepness of the ascent increased, so did the desire to climb higher and see more of the volcano, and also more of the country into which fate had brought him. Once a few hundred feet higher, he felt he would be able to set all doubts at rest as to whether they were surrounded by the sea; and to get this proof Oliver Lane pressed on.
After a time he got more into the knack of climbing without slipping back so much, but the sun was getting higher, and its beams grew warm, while he was conscious of a sensation as of heat striking upward from the ashy substance of which the slope was composed, and at last, to gratify his curiosity, and to clear away a doubt, Lane stooped down to lay his hand flat upon the ash, and snatch it away again, for it was quite hot.
For a moment or two after this, he hesitated, but there above him rose the cone with its crest of smoke, and apparently nothing to hinder him from climbing steadily to the top, and from thence getting a bird’s-eye view of the country round.
That was enough to start him on, and setting himself manfully to the task, in less than half an hour he found that he had reached an atmospheric band where the breeze blew pleasantly cool and invigorating. The cloud over the summit of the cone had floated away, and all was clear and bright as he resumed the ascent, feeling now that an hour would bring him to the top, when all at once he fell upon his knees, and then threw himself at full length. For the mountain quivered beneath his feet, and produced a giddy sensation as the surface rose and fell in waves, whilst almost simultaneously there was a terrific roar, and he saw a dense cloud driven out from above, and ascending to a tremendous height, as if shot out by an internal explosion.
His first feeling was, that he must turn and rush down: his second, that it would be madness to stir, for the side of the mountain was opening and shutting in a network of fissures, and the next minute, the cloud which he had seen blasted upwards proved itself not to be so much mist, but a storm of ashes and scoria mingled with huge masses of rock, which now curled over like a fountain, and were falling back in all directions.
Oliver Lane tried to anchor himself to the shifting ashes as he lay there, feeling that his last hour had come, for darkness was now added to the other horrors, and the mountain-side was in strange quivering motion, gaze wildly whichever way he would.