What a gulf! It must have been acres in extent, and fully one thousand feet in depth. The precipices that formed its sides were at times even black and sheer; in some places overhanging, and in others sloping so that one might have tobogganed down into the regions of perpetual fire. Not everywhere down yonder, however, were flames visible. It was more a collection of boiling, bubbling cauldrons, emitting jets of sulphurous smoke, the surface of the molten lava being continually crossed by flickering tongues of flame, transcendently beautiful.
Right in the centre was an irregular gaping mouth, and from this smoke now and then arose, accompanied by hurtling horrible thunders that made our strong-hearted heroes quiver. Not with fear, I shall not go so far as that, but no one could tell at what moment an eruption might take place.
To Duncan's waist the rope had been made fast, else he never would have ventured to lean over that awful crater.
It was the captain's turn next. Then came Conal's and the men's.
All but Ted.
"Is it me myself?" he said, drawing back, when asked to do as the others had done. "Fegs! no. It is faint I would entoirely, and faint and fall over. Bedad! I've no raison to go to such a place as that before my time."
Captain Talbot now proceeded to take his observations. His aneroid told him, to begin with, that the mountain was more nearly twelve than eleven thousand feet above the sea-level. Piercingly cold though it was, he took time to make a note of everything. But I should not have used the word "cold". This is far from descriptive of the lowness of temperature experienced, for the spirit thermometer stood at 40° below zero.
It was now four o'clock in the afternoon, and all hands were almost exhausted from fatigue. But Talbot was not so foolish as to give them stimulants. This would only have resulted in a sleepy or partially comatose state of the brain, and an accident would assuredly have followed.
"Now, men, we have seen all there is to see, and I've taken my observations, so it is time we were getting down again to our sheltering cave, in which we shall pass one night more. But we can say that we have been the first to ascend this mighty mountain, and human feet have never before traversed the ground on which you now are standing.
"See here," he continued, suiting the action to the word, "I place this little flag--the British ensign--and though storms may rend it, this mountain, and all the land and country around, shall evermore belong to us."