[CHAPTER XVI.]
THE FIRE-CHASM.
The fearful situation in which she now found herself was enough to appal a stouter hear than that of Mary Manton.
Poor girl! after all the hardships she had undergone, to find herself about to meet such a frightful doom, was, indeed, a trying ordeal for her delicate nerves.
Shriek after shriek passing her lips, mingled with the hoarsest cries of Captain Brand, and the triumphant screams of the savages, who, their forms and faces lighted by the volcanic fire, might well have been compared to the demons of the infernal regions!
Twenty times at least, as if to torture them by the fearful suspense, the natives swung their victims before they made the final one to throw them into the yawning chasm!
Meanwhile, Turk and his friend had started afresh, and were fast scaling the sides of the cliff.
The mountain was now fairly reeling with the inner convulsions. The lava had swollen on one side to a broad stream, rushing, hissing and streaming down the side of the steep cliff.
In fact the two men as they mounted, were constantly obliged to dodge to one side, to escape contact with some of the diverging rivulets.