About six miles distant, on our lee-bow, a mighty pyramid of fire was rising from the sea, as if millions of rockets were being vomited forth; the roaring of the water that seethed around the crater of this submarine volcano—for it was one of those terrible examples which Kircher first records as having witnessed in the Azores—had a dreadful sound; and the sulphureous ashes that mingled with the salt steam, and fell like a snow-storm on our deck, were so suffocating that two men became insensible. This thick white powder continued to fall so fast that our persons, the deck, the guns, the rigging, masts, and yards, speedily became as if coated with flour; and the entire ship, in all her details, assumed a phantom-like aspect, as she glided on amid this terrific glare, which for nearly ten minutes overspread the ocean, and made it resemble a sea of flame.
Anon the light sank slowly down; the radiance faded away, and then we heard the angry and hollow roaring of the sea as it was sucked down into the mighty depth of some submarine crater or vortex, the physical construction of which was beyond our conception; but the reflux of the water boiled in hot and seething foam around us, while the spray that flew over the ship to leeward was warm, and became crusted salt in a moment, on the guns, booms, and shrouds.
Many of our seamen and passengers became almost paralysed by astonishment, and we found ourselves all but overwhelmed by the ashy torrent that had fallen upon us, and, amid which, in the gloom that succeeded, our figures seemed like those of indistinct spectres; but now the roaring of the wind, and increasing turbulence of the sea, recalled us to our senses by the natural instinct of self-preservation, for all the skill of seamanship was speedily required. The yards were squared, the Etna was set before the wind, and we lost no time in spreading every inch of canvas we dared, to escape from the spot; thus, our old privateer flew before the rising tempest and the rolling sea like a veritable phantom ship.*
* In 1720 a column of fire sprang from the sea near Tercera, when an island arose above the surface; and in February, 1811, similar events occurred at the western extremity of the island of St. Michael, when the flames are said to have "risen into the air like a host of sky-rockets, with the usual accompaniments of smoke, ashes, and noise."
By the compass, the Etna's head lay nearly due north.
The wind soon freed us from the sulphureous ashes which covered our persons and the ship, but the crystalline salt of the spray lay thick and white as hoar frost upon the deck, the gunnels, and studding-sail booms alongside.
The wind still freshened, but a stiff glass of brandy-and-water, together with our excitement, enabled us to pass the night without once thinking of turning in; and by day-dawn we saw land rising under a leaden-hued sky, from a grey and angry sea on our starboard bow, and it was about ten miles off on our beam about one o'clock.
"What do you make it out to be?" I asked Stanley, who was gazing anxiously through his telescope.
"An island," was the curt reply.
"Of course,—but what island?"