"Then I engage you," said Rollo. Then touching the coachman, he pointed to the boy, and said, "Questo," which means "this one."
So the coachman pushed the other men back, and made room for the boy to get up on the seat with him. He then whipped up the horses, and soon the other guides and the beggars, with all their noise and clamor, were left behind.
"You managed it very well, Rollo," said Mrs. Gray.
"Yes, Rollo," said Rosie, "you did it very well indeed. Next time I shall not be at all afraid."
After riding a little farther, the coachman turned into a sort of lane, and after going on for some way in the lane, he stopped. The boy got down, and said that it would be necessary for them to walk the rest of the way. So the whole party descended from the carriage, and began their walk.
After going on for nearly a quarter of a mile, they passed through a gate which seemed to be connected with some rude sort of manufactory, and then, walking on a little farther, they found themselves within the crater. It was a small, circular valley, surrounded on all sides by a ridge of earth, apparently one or two hundred feet high. The valley might have been about a third or a quarter of a mile in diameter. The bottom of it was level, and was covered with a scanty vegetation. The soil was very white, as if it were formed of substances calcined by exposure to the fire.
An old man met them at the gate, and led the way in towards the middle of the crater, along a sort of cart road. After a while he stopped, and took up a large stone—as large as a man's head. This stone he threw down with great force upon the ground two or three times, to show how hollow the ground sounded. It did sound very hollow indeed, and the peculiar resonance which is produced here by this experiment is generally considered as proving that there is a great void space below the surface, and that the bottom of the crater may some day or other fall in.
At a little distance farther on, on the other side of the crater, and close at the foot of the ridge of earth that surrounds it, there was to be seen a column of dense smoke, or rather of vapor, coming up out of the ground.
The guide led the way towards this place, and all the party followed him. As they approached it, they heard a roaring sound, which grew louder and louder as they drew near. When they arrived at the spot, they saw that the steam was issuing from the mouth of a cavern that opened there; and as it came out, it made a noise like the roaring of a steam pipe when the engineer is blowing off steam.