Luckily, the Petrel’s bows were presented fairly to it, or the consequences would have been disastrous. As it was it curled in over the stem, an unbroken mass of water, filling the decks in an instant and carrying the schooner irresistibly along with it toward the shore at the bottom of the bay.
“Let go the anchor,” shouted Captain Staunton, as soon as he could get his head above water.
But before this could be done the wave had swept past, rushing with a loud thundering roar far up the beach even to the capstan-house, and then rapidly subsiding.
“Get the canvas on her at once,” ordered Captain Staunton—“close-reefed main-sail, fore-sail, and jib; we shall have some wind presently, please God, and we’ll make use of it to get out of this as speedily as possible—Merciful Heaven! what now?”
A sullen roar; a rattling crash as of a peal of heaviest thunder; and the whole scene was suddenly lit up with a lurid ruddy glow. Turning their startled glances inland, our adventurers saw that the lofty hill-top, dominating the head of the ravine, near which was situated the gold cavern, had burst open and was vomiting forth vast volumes of flame and smoke. As they looked the top of the hill visibly crumbled and melted away, the flames shot up in fiercer volumes, vast quantities of red-hot ashes, mingled with huge masses of glowing incandescent rock, were projected far into the air; a terrific storm of thunder and lightning suddenly burst forth to add new terrors to the scene; and to crown all, a new rift suddenly burst open in the side of the hill, out of which there immediately poured a perfect ocean of molten lava.
In the face of this stupendous phenomenon Captain Staunton’s order to make sail passed unheeded; the entire faculties of every man on board the schooner were wholly absorbed in awe-struck contemplation of the terrific spectacle.
Onward rolled the fiery flood. It wound in a zigzag serpentine course down the side of the hill, and soon reached the thick wood at its base and at the head of the valley. The stately forest withered, blazed for a brief moment, and vanished in its fatal embrace, and now it came sweeping down the steep declivity toward the bay.
This terrible sight aroused and vivified the paralysed energies of those on board the Petrel. Without waiting for a repetition of the order to make sail they sprang with panic-stricken frantic haste to cast off the gaskets, and in an incredibly short time the schooner was under canvas.
Still there was no wind. Not the faintest breath of air came to stir the flapping sails of the now gently rolling vessel; and her crew could do nothing but wait in feverish anxious expectancy for the long-delayed breeze, watching meanwhile the majestic irresistible onward sweep of that fiery deluge.
