“That’s curious,” said Jack. “Wait a moment; I’ll go back to the fire and bring a lighted stick.”
He had hardly spoken when a most astounding incident occurred. There was a dull thud like the explosion of loose gunpowder; a shower of mud bespattered us all over, and a cloud of steam puffed into our faces.
To say that we were frightened would be to put it altogether too mildly. Ulysses, giving vent to a howl of dismay, clapped his tail between his legs and disappeared into the woods; and as for us, we staggered back, and stood for a moment trembling and speechless. One does not, as a rule, care to confess having been afraid, but I own with perfect readiness that I was on this occasion very much afraid, and Jack and Percy I know will own as much. If anybody shall choose to scoff at us he is welcome; but I should like to see the hero who would preserve his equanimity under such circumstances. An unexpected explosion at any time or in any place is a terrifying thing. How much more terrifying must it be then in the darkness and silence of an untrodden wilderness?
As Percy afterwards said, it was enough to scare anybody to have the solid earth all of a sudden get up and fly at you like that.
As soon as we could collect our senses we ran back to the fire, and there again we stood still for a short time gazing apprehensively into the darkness; wondering what was to happen next, and what it was that had happened already. Our captain was the first to recover the use of his tongue.
“I wonder what that was,” said he. “I never was half so scared in my life. It seems to be all quiet now. Shall we go back and look?”
It was not easy to screw up one’s courage to go near the place again, but anything was better than uncertainty. Making, therefore, a couple of torches, we walked back to the scene of the explosion.
For a space about fifteen feet square we found the turf all broken into pieces and much of it turned upside down, while between the fragments there issued a light cloud of steam. The turf itself was damp and warm.
“Well,” said Jack, “I expect no three fellows ever had such a surprising thing happen to them before. I think I can account for it, though. There must be a good many hot springs about here—there’s the irony taste of that creek, and the white stuff down below, and the smell of bad eggs—and I expect the steam from one of them has found its way under the turf to this spot, and as soon as there was enough of it it blew up.”
“That’s it, I’ve no doubt,” said I. “But look here, Jack; how are we to know that it won’t blow up under our beds to-night? That would be worse than this was.”