“Nigel,” said the hermit, “stick close to us if you can. It may be that, if anything should befall me, your strong arm may succour Winnie; mine has lost somewhat of its vigour,” he whispered.
“Trust me—nothing but death shall sunder us,” said the anxious youth in a burst of enthusiasm.
It seemed as if death were indeed to be the immediate portion of all on board the Sunshine, for a few minutes later there came a crash, followed by a spout of smoke, fire, steam, and molten lava, compared to which all that had gone before seemed insignificant!
The crash was indescribable! As we have said elsewhere, the sound of it was heard many hundreds of miles from the seat of the volcano, and its effects were seen and felt right round the world.
The numerous vents which had previously been noticed on Krakatoa must at that moment have been blown into one, and the original crater of the old volcano—said to have been about six miles in diameter—must have resumed its destructive work. All the eye-witnesses who were near the spot at the time, and sufficiently calm to take note of the terrific events of that morning, are agreed as to the splendour of the electrical phenomena displayed during this paroxysmal outburst. One who, at the time, was forty miles distant speaks of the great vapour-cloud looking “like an immense wall or blood-red curtain with edges of all shades of yellow, and bursts of forked lightning at times rushing like large serpents through the air.” Another says that “Krakatoa appeared to be alight with flickering flames rising behind a dense black cloud.” A third recorded that “the lightning struck the mainmast conductor five or six times,” and that “the mud-rain which covered the decks was phosphorescent, while the rigging presented the appearance of Saint Elmo’s fire.”
It may be remarked here, in passing, that giant steam-jets rushing through the orifices of the earth’s crust constitute an enormous hydro-electric engine; and the friction of ejected materials striking against each other in ascending and descending also generates electricity, which accounts to some extent for the electrical condition of the atmosphere.
In these final and stupendous outbursts the volcano was expending its remaining force in breaking up and ejecting the solid lava which constituted its framework, and not in merely vomiting forth the lava-froth, or pumice, which had characterised the earlier stages of the eruption. In point of fact—as was afterwards clearly ascertained by careful soundings and estimates, taking the average height of the missing portion at 700 feet above water, and the depth at 300 feet below it—two-thirds of the island were blown entirely off the face of the earth. The mass had covered an area of nearly six miles, and is estimated as being equal to one and one-eighth cubic miles of solid matter which, as Moses expressed it, was blown to bits!
If this had been all, it would have been enough to claim the attention and excite the wonder of the intelligent world—but this was not nearly all, as we shall see, for saddest of all the incidents connected with the eruption is the fact that upwards of thirty-six thousand human beings lost their lives. The manner in which that terrible loss occurred shall be shown by the future adventures of the Sunshine.