“Why?”
“It’s sharp as ragers. I’ve cut my cheek.”
“Sarve yer right for being so clumsy. You should use it like this here.”
“Well, I did, matey.”
“I’m blest!” cried Smith, throwing down the piece of volcanic glass, and dabbing at his nose, whose side was bleeding slightly.
“Cut yoursen?”
“Ay: didn’t know it was so sharp as that.”
Wriggs chuckled heartily, and the little party moved on as well as they could for the great fissures about the rim, some of which went down into profound depths, from whence rose up strange hissings and whisperings of escaping gases, and breathings of intensely hot air.
There was so much to see, that they would willingly have gone on trying to follow the edge all round, but before long they had warnings that the whole of one side was impassable from the vapours rising from the various fuming rifts, and that it would be madness to proceed; and at last as Panton was pressing his friends to persevere for a few yards farther, they had what Smith called “notice to quit,” in a change of the wind that wafted a scorching heat toward them, which, had they not fled over the side and down the outer slope for a short distance, would have proved fatal.
It was only temporary, though, for the fresh cool air came again, and they stopped, hesitating about returning.