But the buoyant vessel rose again as the falling ashes were succeeded by cinders which came rattling and crashing down, literally bombarding the deck, while to add to the horror the black darkness began to give place to a blood-red lurid glare. Toward this they were now being drawn, slowly at first, then faster and faster: as, after the three waves that had struck the vessel, another came towering on astern, threatening to engulf them, but plunging beneath the stern, lifting and bearing them along upon its tremendous crest with a rush and deafening hissing roar. Faster and faster, and on and toward the deep glow now right ahead.
Oliver Lane was clinging to the fore shrouds and awake to the fact that his two friends, Panton and Drew, were at his side, for their faces loomed out of the black darkness, lit up by the blood-red glow from which now came a perceptible sense of heat. The next moment they were joined by the mate, who yelled to them, his voice plainly heard over the hiss and roar,—
“Earthquake wave! It’s all over now.”
He said no more, and they all clung there, with the vessel still balanced accurately upon the huge crest and borne on at almost express speed.
In his agony of despair and horror Lane now glanced to right and left to see by the blood-red glow the rolling hill of water upon which he rode spreading out to right and left, while from the clouds above it was as if the whole of the firmament were casting down its stars in one great shower of light as the fiery stones came rushing, hissing into the sea and many of them crashing upon the doomed ship.
Death was upon them in its most awful form, and as the young man was conscious of two hands gripping his arms, a voice close to his ear shouted,—
“The end of all things, my lad; we can never live through this!”