Just then the wind again changed, and the whole mass of vapour, smoke, and ashes came sweeping like the very besom of destruction towards the giddy ledge on which the observers stood. Nigel was so entranced that it is probable he might have been caught in the horrible tempest and lost, had not his cooler companion grasped his arm and dragged him violently into the passage—where they were safe, though half suffocated by the heat and sulphurous vapours that followed them.
At the same time the thunderous roaring became so loud that conversation was impossible. Van der Kemp therefore took his friend’s hand and led him down to the cave, where the sounds were so greatly subdued as to seem almost a calm by contrast.
“We are no doubt in great danger,” said the hermit, gravely, as he sat down in the outer cave, “but there is no possibility of taking action to-night. Here we are, whether wisely or unwisely, and here we must remain—at least till there is a lull in the eruption. ‘God is our refuge.’ He ought to be so at all times, but there are occasions when this great, and, I would add, glorious fact is pressed upon our understandings with unusual power. Such a time is this. Come—we will see what His word says to us just now.”
To Nigel’s surprise, and, he afterwards confessed, to his comfort and satisfaction, the hermit called the negro from his work, and, taking down the large Bible from its shelf, read part of the 46th Psalm, “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea.”
He stopped reading at the verse where it is written, “Be still, and know that I am God.”
Then, going down on his knees,—without even the familiar formula, “Let us pray”—he uttered a brief but earnest prayer for guidance and deliverance “in the name of Jesus.”
Rising, he quietly put the Bible away, and, with the calmness of a thoroughly practical man, who looks upon religion and ordinary matters as parts of one grand whole, ordered Moses to serve the supper.
Thus they spent part of that memorable night of 26th August 1883 in earnest social intercourse, conversing chiefly and naturally about the character, causes, and philosophy of volcanoes, while Perboewatan and his brethren played a rumbling, illustrative accompaniment to their discourse. The situation was a peculiar one. Even the negro was alive to that fact.
“Ain’t it koorious,” he remarked solemnly in a moment of confidence after swallowing the last bite of his supper. “Ain’t it koorious, Massa Nadgel, dat we’re a sottin’ here comf’rably enjoyin’ our wittles ober de mout’ ob a v’licano as is quite fit to blow us all to bits an’ hois’ us into de bery middle ob next week—if not farder?”
“It is strange indeed, Moses,” said Nigel, who however added no commentary, feeling indisposed to pursue the subject.