This obstacle, which could not be turned, had to be crossed, so the cylinder was put to its utmost power, and the balloon rose to the height of six thousand feet, leaving between it and the volcano a space of more than three hundred fathoms.
From his bed of suffering, the dying missionary could contemplate that fiery crater from which a thousand jets of dazzling flame were that moment escaping.
“How grand it is!” said he, “and how infinite is the power of God even in its most terrible manifestations!”
This overflow of blazing lava wrapped the sides of the mountain with a veritable drapery of flame; the lower half of the balloon glowed redly in the upper night; a torrid heat ascended to the car, and Dr. Ferguson made all possible haste to escape from this perilous situation.
By ten o’clock the volcano could be seen only as a red point on the horizon, and the balloon tranquilly pursued her course in a less elevated zone of the atmosphere.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THIRD.
Joe in a Fit of Rage.—The Death of a Good Man.—The Night of watching by the Body.—Barrenness and Drought.—The Burial.—The Quartz Rocks.—Joe’s Hallucinations.—A Precious Ballast.—A Survey of the Gold-bearing Mountains.—The Beginning of Joe’s Despair.
A magnificent night overspread the earth, and the missionary lay quietly asleep in utter exhaustion.
“He’ll not get over it!” sighed Joe. “Poor young fellow—scarcely thirty years of age!”
“He’ll die in our arms. His breathing, which was so feeble before, is growing weaker still, and I can do nothing to save him,” said the doctor, despairingly.