THE BIRTH OF A VOLCANO 133 



wrought imperceptibly from pink and salmon sun- 

 set glow to the scarlet and white of the lava fires, 

 the cosmic splendor of the whole thing was over- 

 powering. Whatever the theory of vulcanism, how- 

 ever learnedly we might discourse of lava and vol- 

 canos, light and the sun, the dominant thing was 

 that we had been brought close to the very begin- 

 ning of things, — and this could not be written or 

 spoken, hardly thought indeed, but merely sensed 

 as one stood apart in a lonely corner of the deck. 



But this Archipelago, when it had once opened 

 its heart to us who had learned to love it so, gave 

 lavishly, with measure overflowing. As when to 

 the volcano it had added the miracle of the shoot- 

 ing star and then duplicated this on the second 

 evening, so all the imagination of our company 

 combined could not have foretold what June the 

 fourteenth was to bring forth. 



This was just nine weeks later, when we had re- 

 turned from a trip clear to Panama to replenish 

 om- stock of coal and fresh water. It was also 

 on a Sunday, when the Arcturus was again steam- 

 ing along the shore of northeastern Albemarle. 

 The sun rose when we were exactly on the equator, 

 and the day broke clear and cool, with a strong 

 wind and current from the south. At seven o'clock 

 when we were all at breakfast, the wheezy, tin fog- 

 horn sounded from the bridge — a signal that some- 

 thing of interest was in sight. We all tumbled 

 up to see a great mass of steam pouring out appar- 

 ently from the very sea beyond Cape Marshall. 

 For two days we had watched from a distance the 



