We saw then that our car had alighted upon an elevation which was nothing less than the rim of an extinct volcano of vast proportions. From ridge to ridge across the abysmal crater at least half a mile could be measured.
It was beyond the power of our eyes to penetrate to the black depths of the great pit.
"Listen!" cried the professor, his voice resounding so thunderously as almost to deafen us—some trick of the atmosphere.
We stood silently, our ears alert, and heard a confused babel of sound proceeding apparently out of the very core of the volcano.
"Sub-Mercurial fires may be at work down there," whispered the professor, nodding toward the crater.
Even the whisper sounded unpleasantly loud to us.
"What a world!" came from Augustus Popham in bellowing tones. "With fire within and without, what chance is there for life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness?"
Some of Meigs' peevishness had got into the coal man, and he rent the air with it. We remained mule after this outburst, I with my gaze hopefully on the professor and the professor blinking at the sun.
In a little time I allowed my own eyes to falter zenithward, and the glory of the sun in Mercury's mid-heaven has ever since been one of the treasured memories of my life. Its disk was six times its diameter as viewed from Earth, and the grandeur of its flaming surface is beyond the powers of my feeble pen to make known.
I was oppressed and held captive by a feeling of awe and wonder. There was a red tinge to the atmosphere, caused by a reflection from the red of the planet's brick-like crust; through this warm color pulsed the golden streamers—yellow and scarlet overhead, fading to faintest orange on the horizon.