Now for the ascent.
[Illustration: The Ascent Of Vesuvius.]
Buttons went first. Like a young chamois this youth bounded up, leaping from rock to rock, and steering in a straight line for the summit. Next the Senator, who mounted slowly and perseveringly, as though he had a solemn duty to perform, and was determined to do it thoroughly. Then came Dick. More fitful. A few steps upward: then a rest; then a fresh start; followed by another rest. At length he sat down about one-third of the way up and took a smoke. Behind him Mr. Figgs toiled up, pulled by the panting guides. Three stout men in front--two others boosting from behind.
A long description might be given of this remarkable ascent. How Mr. Figgs aggravated the guides almost beyond endurance by mere force of inertia. Having committed himself to them he did it thoroughly, and not by one single act of exertion did he lessen their labor. They pulled, pushed, and shouted; then they rested; then they rose again to pull, to push, to shout, and to rest as before; then they implored him in the most moving terms to do something to help them, to put one foot before the other, to brace himself firmly--in short, to do any thing.
In vain. Mr. Figgs didn't understand a word. He was unmovable. Then they threatened to drop him and leave him half-way. The threat was disregarded. Mr. Figgs sat on a stone while they rested and smiled benignantly at them. At last, maddened by his impassibility, they screamed at him and at one another with furious gesticulations, and then tearing off the straps, they hurried up the slope, leaving him on the middle of the mount to take care of himself.
It might be told how the Senator toiled up slowly but surely, never stopping till he had gained the summit; or how Buttons, who arrived there first, spent the time in exploring the mysteries of this elevated region; or how Dick stopped every twenty paces to rest and smoke; how he consumed much time and much tobacco; and how he did not gain the summit until twenty minutes after the serene face of the Senator had confronted the terrors of the crater.
Before these three there was a wonderful scene. Below them lay the steep sides of the cone, a waste of hideous ruin--
"Rocks, crags, and mounds confusedly hurled,
The fragments of a ruined world."