Nature and Art, October 1, 186(5. J 
AN INCIDENT IN THE PACIFIC. 
145 
by a rushing sound, which seemed to advance 
towards me, from the opposite side of the crater. 
As if held by a fascination, I could not take my 
eyes off my companion. He heard that sound, too, 
for he gave a start, and bounded forward towards 
the brink. The rushing sound came on like a 
whirlwind. I looked up, and there, right across 
the whole width of the crater, hurried a dense 
white cloud, through which fiery coruscations 
gleamed and flashed with an intense red light. 
On, on it came ! I gazed at it in stupid terror. 
My eyes followed it as it advanced, and then caught 
sight once more of the figure of my companion. 
He had not reached the shore. I saw him raise his 
pole, and plant it upon what seemed a perfectly 
hard place. He leant upon it to leap, and the 
place on which it rested went down ! I shrieked 
in horror, but the same instant the woolly-looking 
white cloud passed over the spot, and flashing forth 
its red lightnings, rushed towards where I cowered, 
trembling. I turned, and sprang up the steep 
ascent. From crag to crag I sprang, heedless of 
the fact that my boots were torn, and my feet and 
hands bleeding and cut in a dozen places, so entirely 
had the idea of escaping with life absorbed every 
faculty into itself. Presently, the cloud over- 
took me. I gasped as the thick vapour took my 
breath, but I did not give in. On, on I sprang, 
totally unable to guess what was before me, but 
certain that death lay behind. I could see nothing 
more than a couple of feet from me now, and only 
that by a tension of my powers of vision, which I 
could not have endured for a minute at any other 
time. The volcano I knew was busy ! I could 
hear the sharp rattle of huge pieces of stone thrown 
up, and bounding down the steep side of the crater. 
Still I struggled on ; struggled not merely as a man 
struggles for life, but as a man struggles to escape 
a horror worse than death. 
At last ! It was the cool wind from the sea that 
sent that thrill through every nerve and muscle of 
my body ! I knew that I had got out of the crater ; 
I could, however, see nothing yet. The white cloud 
was round, and all over me as before, and I had to 
grope round in the horrible darkness. Still, I felt 
that I was in a place of comparative safety, and 
that feeling unnerved my limbs and unstrung my 
muscles. I sank upon the ground in utter ex- 
haustion ! I must have been some time insensible, 
for I seemed suddenly to awake with a start, at a 
sound more appalling than any I had yet heard. I 
leapt to my feet with terror ! At that moment, 
the wind came with a strong puff, and that fleecy 
cloud, which glowed now with an unutterable light, 
rolled up in heavy folds before it, and split asunder 
right overhead. 
It was like a dream. The calm, broad moon was 
floating right above me in an ocean of blue sky. 
That flood of pure silvery light which penetrated 
through the red glare round me, seemed to still my 
pulse as if by magic. I scarcely thought whether 
there was a chance of life or not, my sole feeling 
- seemed one of awe, and of a strange kind of rest, 
mingled in some inexplicable way with a strong 
v. 
curiosity to see more. I could have prayed at the 
moment for a gale of wind ; and it came without my 
prayer. Suddenly, the wreaths of mist grew 
agitated, and swayed from side to side in wild com- 
motion ; then gathered up their huge white billows, 
and passed away before the gale. 
The volcano was in full and awful eruption ! 
Right before me was the great crater, no longer a 
black, smoky abyss, but now a boiling sea of red- 
hot seething lava. It leaped and waved, and 
hissed with a sound like a myriad of snakes, while 
its awful waves lapped up higher and higher every 
moment on the sides of the crater. It would be 
impossible to give an idea of its coloui\ Now it 
was red, like the sky after a stormy sunset ; now 
the colour of blood, so like it, that I shuddered 
again ; then again of a purple tint, and almost 
verging upon blue, while over it in all directions 
floated hazy vapoirrs of every conceivable tinge of 
colour, throwing ghastly shades upon everything 
within reach of their colouring powers. I saw now 
what the noise had been. The whole of the western 
peak of Tama-Tavoo had disappeared — slipped, I did 
not doubt — into the boiling lake below it. As I 
looked where it had been, a thought thrilled through 
me like a fear once more. It was caused by a hope ! 
I stood upon, as nearly as possible, the very spot 
at which I had begun my awful descent into the 
crater. Formerly, there had arisen on each side a 
craggy peak ; now there was but one peak. Before 
me, the burning, boiling lake of fiery waves was 
surging and seething up towards me, foot by foot, 
inch by inch ! The hope was, that it might over- 
flow the crater, before it rose to the spot where I 
stood. It was but one shudder, and I was calm 
again. Calm enough — strange and unnatural as it 
may appear — to observe the forms of some of the 
rocks at my feet, and to speculate upon the question 
how soon each little point would be covered by the 
advancing tide. It was curious how many things 
I seemed to see at once. I was conscious of the 
moon floating undisturbed overhead ; I knew how 
beautifully the sea shone far below under its soft 
rays ; I could even observe and wonder at the 
curious forms which the fiery waves of lava assumed, 
as they lapped up and up along the brink of the 
crater. The only thing I could hear was the vast 
hissing noise, to which I have before referred, and 
which had either drowned every other, or had 
affected my sense of hearing, so that I could perceive 
nothing else. On it came ! never stopping, never 
ceasing for an instant, that same awful monotonous 
sound. I shrank from it, and though with both 
hands I screened my face from the intolerable 
heat and light, I was too paralyzed in body and 
mind to move, until a yet mightier sound, like the 
roar of a cataract, made me start from my lethargy. 
I looked, and in a moment I felt that I was saved. 
The lake had found an exit ! already it had burst 
through the retaining brim of the crater, and was 
rolling a mighty, glancing, quivering river of fire 
down the steep hill-side. 
Down ! down ! down ! My eyes followed its 
course as if in a dream. Before it I could see the 
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