"Ah," I put in as carelessly as I could. "Lava, I suppose, and sulphur, and so forth?"
"H'm," the lieutenant answered with a dubious sniff. "You may call it sulphur and lava if you like; but for my part, I think it smelt precious like petroleum."
"You don't mean to say so!" I cried, astonished at this independent confirmation of my worst suspicions.
"Yes, I do," he answered. "That's just about the name of it. And petroleum doesn't grow of itself in Hawaii."
"Tom," my brother said, coming up to me quietly, and speaking in a very unwonted whisper; "this is not the place to discuss all these things. The sooner you and I can get out of it the better. It's my belief Kalaua has saturated the ground with something and set it on fire."
"I don't know what particular heathen did it," the officer put in with a confident tone; "but of this I'm sure, that somebody's poured coal oil all over the place. I smelt it distinctly. Now, I don't mind camping out on volcanoes or craters when they're left to themselves, but I'm hanged if I like them when they're stirred up with coal oil to go burning down the tent over a fellow's head. It's clear these Sandwich Islanders are inhospitable folk; they don't mean to let us pitch our tents on that particular spot; and if they can't turn us out one way, why then they'll turn us out in another. As it is, we've lost already two of our tents, and it was a blessing we didn't lose the whole lot together, not to mention the lives of Her Majesty's lieges to our care committed, for we were snoring most peacefully when the fire began."
"How did it all happen?" I asked with interest.
"Why, just like this. We were lying asleep, like warriors taking their rest, on our own mattresses—sound asleep, every man Jack of us—when I saw a glare shining under the tent, which I suppose would never have woke me if a spark hadn't happened to fall on my forehead. My first idea was that the volcano had got up an eruption on purpose in our honour: but when I got outside and looked at the ground, I came to the conclusion it couldn't be that for various reasons, and I set it down to your friend the native. For one thing, the place just reeked of petroleum, and for another, it was only alight on the surface, in half-a-dozen different places at once, exactly as if somebody had set a match to it."
"And what did you do then?" I inquired.
"Oh, I waked the men—and I never knew men so hard to waken. By dint of care however we've put it out, and I've come down here to talk the thing over with you."