"Ah, but the days we spent here before the worthy Cohasset was sighted were days of much badness! We thought you had come and departed, for we did not find the ambergris. We thought we would all have to go out from hunger and exposure. We thought it would be of much sadness to go out in this place of blackness; the spirits of our honorable ancestors would regard us with much unkindness if we came from this evil place." The man suddenly leered upon Martin. "How would you like to go out in this place of bleakness? Ah—what a sadness!"
He turned and stared at the fantastic, brooding face of the rapidly nearing rock.
"I will with frankness say I do not like this place," he concluded. "I shall be of gladness when I see the last of that smoke, up there, and feel no more the shakes of awfulness."
They were within a few yards of the beach. Martin stared upward. The mountain tapered steeply to the crater thousands of feet above him. The yellow-brown smoke poured upward lazily, and he was sensible, as on the day before, of an acrid, unpleasant taste in the air. Also, as when he had obtained his first fog-obscured view of the mountain from the topgallantyard, he felt oppressed as he looked at that desolate wilderness of crazily jumbled rock towering above him; the sunlight, which sparkled upon the water, failed to brighten the mountain's somber tone, and the nightmare architecture looming above him shivered him with dread.
The openings of numberless caves gaped blackly, like blind eyes. The myriad-voiced screeching of the sea-birds added to the bleakness of the aspect. As Moto swept the boat through the gentle surf that laved the little beach, the Fire Mountain was invested, in Martin's excited mind, with personality, with a malignant, evil personality.
In truth, Martin looked upon himself as doomed. "How would you like to go out?" Ichi had queried; and his manner had made the question a promise. Well, he would try not to go out alone. His work was cut out for him, and it was desperate work. There was slim chance, he knew, of surviving the execution of his plan, but he contemplated his probable death with the high courage of self-sacrifice.
His life, he felt, was a small price to pay for the recovery of the ship and the freeing of his sweetheart. For he was convinced that the boatswain's success was dependent upon his keeping these six Japs on shore. He felt sure his comrades, warned by Yip and Little Billy, would seize the opportunity presented by Carew's divided forces. He meant to fight to keep the Japs separated.
As the boat grounded, and he stood up to leap ashore, he wriggled his wrists in the cuffs, making sure he could free himself with a jerk. He might die, but he vowed he would take some of these yellow devils with him on his passage out.
Also, he reflected, it would make little difference to him, even if he remained docile. The issue would be the same. He was certain Ichi would murder him, so soon as the treasure was uncovered. He was certain Carew had commanded that very ending.
So, it was with a mind made up to grasp any desperate chance, with a courage utterly reckless, that Martin disembarked on the volcanic sand of Fire Mountain beach.