“Yes,” said Sir John, as he stood looking at the huge solidified stream; “everything about here must have been burned to ashes, and it would, even with the rapid tropic rate, have taken fully a hundred years for these trees to grow.”
“How wide is the stream?” said the doctor; and he led the way to climb up, startling something, which went off with a tremendous rush inland.
“What’s that?” said Sir John.
“Couldn’t catch a glimpse of it; but it wasn’t a man. Four-legged creature of some kind. There, that’s its cry.”
A peculiarly weird howl rang out, and was answered from a distance off; but though the party waited in the hope of seeing what it was that had been started, they were disappointed.
“Never mind,” said the doctor; “we have proof that there are animals about. Now then, how wide do you make the lava-stream to be?”
“About four hundred paces,” said Sir John.
“Quite that,” said the captain. “Well, gentlemen, what do you say to making a halt just beyond the lava there—under one of those trees, say, beside that stream?”
“Couldn’t be a better place,” cried Jack. “I am getting hungry.”
“I think we all are,” said the doctor, smiling, “for we have been tramping quite two hours since Edward had his adventure on the cocoa-nut tree.”