I was awakened by a sense of burning and smothering. I sat up, coughed, and twitched at Nona’s hair to arouse her.
The cave was full of smoke. Beside me was what seemed a pit of fire. The heat from it was intolerable. I flung Nona into the air and followed her myself with a leap.
Across the cave we stood trembling with fright, regarding the red monster of fire that had eaten for itself an open pit in the cave-floor.
Nona had forgotten to extinguish the fire of our evening meal. These rocks were inflammable. The fire had eaten its way downward, as a fire on your Earth would eat downward into a bed of coal, spreading out beneath the ground.
Nona and I did not reason it out that way at the time. All we knew was that the red fire-monster had broken loose, and we were afraid of it. Blue and red tongues of flame licked up from the mouth of its lair; its hot, poisonous breath was stifling us even across the cave.
I was inactive only for a moment. Bidding Nona keep away, I tried to throw dirt into the little crater-mouth.
But the dirt had no effect. I might have extinguished it with water you say? True, I might, though I think now that the volatile, highly aerated water would have been of little avail.
I did not try the water. I did not know that water and fire were traditional enemies. Nor did Nona. How were we to know that, unless we had chanced to discover it for ourselves, which we had not.
Nona screamed at me and I gave up my futile efforts. The air in the cave was almost suffocating; and with the instinct that comes to any trapped animal underground, we scrambled up the passageway to the surface of the meteor.