I glanced up at Zina. ‘There’s some at the villa,’ I said.
Maxwell must have heard, for he said, ‘No time. Must get through before we’re trapped by the lava. I’ll last out all right.’ The cart jolted violently in a rut and the beginnings of a scream was jerked out of his throat. He clutched at Hilda, catching hold of her knee. She took his hand and held it as the cart rocked and swayed and he writhed and bit at his lip in pain.
Then we were entering Avin and suddenly it was hot and the air was full of dust. A smell of sulphur hung over the village. It was as though we had returned to Santo Francisco.
The cart came to a halt. I heard Zina say, ‘What do we do now?’ and I looked past her at the narrow village street that had been full of children and carts when we’d come through the previous day. It was utterly deserted now and it finished abruptly in a wall of lava. I don’t remember feeling any sense of surprise at finding our way out blocked. I think I’d known all along we’d find it like this. There’d been such a narrow gap when I’d looked towards Avin from the top of that tower. I heard Zina sobbing with vexation and Hacket saying, ‘Well, we’ll just have to find a way round, that’s all.’ And I sat there with a sense of complete resignation.
‘Come on, Farrell. We got to find a way round.’ Hacket was shaking me.
‘I don’t think there is a way round,’ I said. ‘Remember what I told you back in Santo Francisco? The two streams have converged.’
‘Come on, man. Pull yourself together. We can’t just sit here.’
I nodded and got out of the cart. The stump of my leg was very painful when I put my weight on it. The lacerated skin seemed to have stiffened and as I moved I could feel the grit working into the flesh again. ‘What do you want me to do?’ I asked. All I wanted to do was to sit still and wait for the end. I felt resigned and at peace. Hilda believed in me. It wouldn’t be so bad going like that with someone believing in me. I was very, very tired.
‘This lava flow is coming in from the right.’ Hacket’s voice seemed far away, almost unreal. ‘We’ll just have to work along the flank of it until we can find a way round.’
I rubbed my hand over my face. ‘There isn’t a Way round,’ I said wearily.