It was long past dinner time, yet no one thought of eating. Who could think of food when they believed they were facing destruction?
How long they stood there, motionless, it would be hard to tell. Hours they must have been and yet to the boys, they passed like minutes.
The tremors of the earth became harder, more frequent, the heavy air became filled with the sickening sulphur smell. It was hot—hot. Their throats ached with the heat. The air was thick with flying particles—lava.
Phil touched the sleeve of his shirt wonderingly and looked at his fingers. They were covered with dust. He looked at his companions. They were covered with dust. He wanted to laugh, they looked so funny—like figures made out of dust. But something kept him from doing that. Perhaps it was the dryness of his throat.
His eyes came back to those darts of fire, higher now, flaming more vividly against the darker sky, gorgeous, soul-shaking.
Something reached out and touched his arm. He looked down and found it was Dick’s hand. He grasped it and the two looked at each other, silently. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to speak. Their silence said more than words. In the hearts of both of them was the thought that perhaps they would not see another sunrise—.
“Look,” cried Steve, his voice sounding thin and strange. “The mountain—”
A liquid stream of fire shooting from the crater’s mouth straight into the heavens, a terrific jar that shook the island from end to end, great, new-made fissures, yawning horribly, a mass of molten lava raining down the mountain slope.
A second quake more awful than the first, a grinding, breaking noise as though the island sank into the sea. Thrown from his feet, Phil struck his head upon a stone.
“It’s—the end,” he muttered, and sank into oblivion.