Fire Island / Being the Adventures of Uncertain Naturalists in an Unknown Track

by George Manville Fenn

The fall of a mass of glowing cinders, so close that he could feel the scorching heat against his cheek, roused Oliver Lane to the fact that it was more dangerous to stay than to rush down-hill, running the gauntlet of the falling shower; and, after a moment’s hesitation, he turned and ran for his life. The white-hot stones and cinders fell around him as he bounded down, having hard work to keep his footing, for at every leap the loose scoria gave way as he alighted, and slipped with him in an avalanche of dust and ashes from which he had to extricate himself.

Once he had pretty well dragged himself out when the ashes for far enough round began to glide downward, the thick haze of volcanic dust around adding to his confusion, while every step he took in his frantic efforts to keep on the surface resulted in his sinking more deeply till he was above his waist in the loose gliding stuff and awake to the fact that it was scorchingly hot.

But all at once, as despair was beginning to enfold him in a tighter hold than the ash and cinder, the gliding avalanche suddenly stopped, and as it was not like the Alpine snow ready to adhere and be compressed into ice, he was able to extricate himself and slide and roll down for some distance further.

Then all at once he found that he was in the sunshine again, and that the stones had ceased to fall and the mountain to quiver; while, as he gazed upward, it was to see that the dark cloud was slowly floating away, giving him a view of the edge of the crater where it was broken down for some distance in the shape of a rugged V, and just at the bottom, every now and then, there was a bright glow of fire visible. The glow then sank completely out of sight, but only to rise up again, and this was continued as the young naturalist watched, suggesting to him the fact that the crater must be full of boiling lava which rose to the edge in its ebullitions and then dropped below the rugged wall.

Ten minutes later the glowing stones which had fallen, looked black and grey; the cloud was at a distance, and there was nothing to indicate that the beautifully shaped mountain ever presented another aspect than that of peace.

Oliver Lane stood looking up with the longing to ascend to the edge of the crater growing strong once more, but he was fagged by his exertions, bathed in perspiration, and aware of the fact that an intense glowing heat rose from the surface all around him, while the air he breathed seemed to produce a strange suffocating effect when he turned his face from the wind which swept over the mountain slope.

In a few minutes he decided that it would be madness to persevere, and that it would be wise to wait until the volcano was in a more quiescent state, for at any minute there might come a fresh explosion from the mouth from which he might not be able to escape so easily.

He looked longingly round to try and make out something of value to report as to their position, but the mountain shut everything off in the direction lying north, and he was reluctantly about to continue his descent when he felt the stones beneath his feet tremble again. Then came a report like that of a huge cannon, and what seemed to be an enormous rock shot upward for hundreds of feet, hung for a moment or two in the clear air, and then fell back into the crater.

That was enough. A burning thirst and a sensation of breathing something which irritated his lungs, awakened him to the fact that he must find water, and, regardless of the heat, he once more began to hurry downward toward the level plain from which the mountain curved up in so beautiful a cone.

Oliver Lane soon found that he was not returning upon his steps, and though apparently not far from where he ascended, it was plain enough that, even if they had not been obliterated by the falling ash and cinders, the fragments flowed together again like sand. A greater proof still was afforded him in the fact that about a quarter of a mile lower down his farther progress was checked by a rugged chasm running right across his path, apparently cutting him off from the lower portion and extending to right and left farther than he could see.