Martin was not much disturbed—a lifetime in San Francisco had made quakes a commonplace experience—but he had the sudden thought that there were safer journeys in the world than the one he was about to take into the heart of a half-extinct volcano. Not that the probable danger of the trip impressed him sharply—he was too much occupied with his plight, and desperate plan—but it was evident the Japs did not relish the undertaking.
The four sailors and Moto were plainly terrified, and, as the trembling and rumbling ceased, they exclaimed with awe and fear. Ichi held himself in hand, but his mouth sagged.
"Always comes the strange noise, and then the shake," he said to Martin. There was the hint of a quiver in his voice. "Out of the deep place, they come—like the struggles of Evil Ones!"
He broke off to speak sharply to his men, bracing them with words.
"They are of much ignorance," he continued to Martin. "They have much fear. They know a silly story their mothers have told them, about the Evil Ones calling from the deep pit; it is a—what you say?—a folk story of the Japanese. These men are of ignorance. But we gentlemen know it is of absurdness, and most untrue. It is a story of great unscientificness."
Ichi rolled the last word off his tongue with difficult triumph. "Unscientificness," was evidently the club his Western education gave him, with which to combat the inbred superstition of centuries. But Martin saw it was a straw club.
But if Ichi were frightened, he mastered his fear.
"It will, perhaps, be some time till the next shake," he told Martin. "We must haste. You shall follow me, please? And recall, as we walk, that Moto is but a pace behind you, and in fine readiness."
He chattered peremptory words to his followers. One of the sailors picked up a lantern, Moto stepped behind Martin, and Ichi lifted the other lantern and stepped toward the cave mouth.
"You might look well at the sky, dear Mr. Blake," he leered over his shoulder at Martin. "Who may say when you will see it again?"