It was too late for repentance, and he tramped wearily on, trying to make out in the lower ground upon which he gazed down to his right, the dense forest and the huge fig-tree in which he had passed the night. He laughed the next minute as he saw the impossibility of his search, for he looked down upon the rounded tops of hundreds of such trees rising like islands out of a sea of golden green shot with orange in the glow of the sinking sun.
Before long he found that he must be on the look-out for another resting-place, and that as there would not be time to reach the band of trees at the foot of the mountain, he must find some patch of rocks on the slope along which he was painfully walking. Then, finding that he had left himself but little time, he halted by some greyish cindery blocks whose bases were sunk in volcanic sand, and hungry and faint with thirst, he threw himself down to lie looking up at the golden ball of illumined steam floating above the top of the volcano high up in the wonderfully transparent heavens till the light began to fade away, and then suddenly went out, that is to say, seemed to go out; for, in spite of hunger, thirst, and weariness, Oliver Lane’s eyelids dropped to open as sharply, directly, as it seemed to him, and he lay staring with dilated eyes upward at the object he had last seen.
But it had changed, for the cloud, instead of looking golden and orange, as it glowed, was now soft, flocculent and grey.
“There it is again,” he said, excitedly then. “I thought it was part of my dream.”
Chapter Seventeen.
Friends in Need.
He was quite right; it was solid reality, and he was looking at the broad back of a man standing a few yards away, with his hands to his mouth, and who now sent forth a tremendous shout, which was answered from a distance before the man turned, and stepped quickly to his side, displaying the rugged features of Billy Wriggs.
“Ain’t dead, are yer, sir?” he cried, sinking on one knee. “Here, have a drink.”