At eight o'clock the summit of the mountain was hidden by a foreboding darkness, while the sky looked terribly black, as if for a background to the flaming outbreak that Paganel was about to inaugurate. The Maoris could no longer see their prisoners. The time for action had come. Rapidity was necessary, and Glenarvan, Paganel, MacNabb, Robert, the steward, and the two sailors at once set to work vigorously.
The place for the crater was chosen thirty paces from Kara-Tété's tomb. It was important that this structure should be spared by the eruption, for otherwise the taboo would become ineffective. Paganel had observed an enormous block of stone, around which the vapors seemed to pour forth with considerable force. This rocky mass covered a small natural crater in the peak, and only by its weight prevented the escape of the subterranean flames. If they could succeed in overturning it, the smoke and lava would immediately issue through the unobstructed opening.
VULCANS AT WORK.
The fugitives made themselves levers out of the stakes of the tomb, and with these they vigorously attacked the ponderous mass. Under their united efforts the rock was not long in moving. They dug a sort of groove for it down the side of the mountain, that it might slide on an inclined plane.
As their action increased, the trembling of the earth became more violent. Hollow rumblings and hissings sounded under the thin crust. But the bold experimenters, like real Vulcans, governing the underground fires, worked on in silence. Several cracks and a few gusts of hot smoke warned them that their position was becoming dangerous. But a final effort detached the block, which glided down the slope of the mountain and disappeared.
The thin covering at once yielded. An incandescent column poured forth towards the sky with loud explosions, while streams of boiling water and lava rolled towards the encampment of the natives and the valleys below. The whole peak trembled, and you might almost have thought that it was disappearing in a general conflagration.
Glenarvan and his companions had scarcely time to escape the shock of the eruption. They fled to the inclosure of the tomb, but not without receiving a few scalding drops of the water, which bubbled and exhaled a strong sulphureous odor.
Then mud, lava, and volcanic fragments mingled in the scene of devastation. Torrents of flame furrowed the sides of the Maunganamu. The adjoining mountains glowed in the light of the eruption, and the deep valleys were illumined with a vivid brightness.
The savages were soon aroused, both by the noise and the heat of the lava that flowed in a scalding tide through the midst of their encampment. Those whom the fiery flood had not reached fled, and ascended the surrounding hills, turning and gazing back at this terrific phenomenon, with which their god, in his wrath, had overwhelmed the desecrators of the sacred mountain; while at certain moments they were heard howling their consecratory cry:
"Taboo! taboo! taboo!"