第106章

WE LEAP.

WE passed through the caves without trouble, but when we came to the slope of the inverted cone two difficulties stared us in the face.The first of these was the laborious nature of the ascent, and the next the extreme difficulty of finding our way.Indeed, had it not been for the mental notes that I had fortunately taken of the shape of various rocks, etc., I am sure that we never should have managed it at all, but have wandered about in the dreadful womb of the volcanofor I suppose it must once have been something of the sortuntil we died of exhaustion and despair.As it was we went wrong several times, and once nearly fell into a huge crack or crevasse.It was terrible work creeping about in the dense gloom and awful stillness from boulder to boulder, and examining it by the feeble light of the lamps to see if I could recognize its shape.We rarely spoke, our hearts were too heavy for speech, we simply stumbled about falling sometimes and cutting ourselves, in a rather dogged sort of way.The fact was that our spirits were utterly crushed, and we did not greatly care what happened to us.Only we felt bound to try and save our lives while we could, and, indeed, a natural instinct prompted us to it.So for some three or four hours, Ishould thinkI cannot tell exactly how long, for we had no watch left that would gowe blundered on.

During the last two hours we were completely lost, and I began to fear that we had got into the funnel of some subsidiary cone, when at last I suddenly recognized a very large rock which we had passed in descending but a little way from the top.It is a marvel that I should have recognized it, and, indeed, we had already passed it going at right angles to the proper path, when something about it struck me, and Iturned back and examined it in an idle sort of way, and, as it happened, this proved our salvation.

After this we gained the rocky natural stair without much further trouble, and in due course found ourselves back in the little chamber where the benighted Noot had lived and died But nowa fresh terror stared us in the face.It will be remembered that, owing to Job's fear and awkwardness, the plank upon which we had crossed from the huge spur to the rocking-stone had been whirled off into the tremendous gulf below.

How were we to cross without the plank?

There was only one answerwe must try and _i_ jump _i_ it, or else stop there till we starved.The distance in itself was not so very great, between eleven and twelve feet I should think, and I have seen Leo jump over twenty when he was a young fellow at college; but, then, think of the conditions.Two weary, worn-out men, one of them on the wrong side of forty, a rocking-stone to take off from, a trembling point of rock some few feet across to land upon, and a bottomless gulf to be cleared in a raging gale! It was bad enough, God knows, but when I pointed out these things to Leo, he put the whole matter in a nutshell by replying that, merciless as the choice was, we must choose between the certainty of a lingering death in the chamber and the risk of a swift one in the air.Of course, there was no arguing against this, but one thing was clear, we could not attempt that leap in the dark; the only thing to do was to wait for the ray of light which pierced through the gulf at sunset.How near to or how far from sunset we might be, neither of us had the faintest notion; all we did know was, that when at last the light came it would not endure more than a couple of minutes at the outside, so that we must be prepared to meet it.Accordingly, we made up our minds to creep on to the top of the rocking-stone and lie there in readiness.We were the more easily reconciled to this course by the fact that our lamps were once more nearly exhaustedindeed, one had gone out bodily and the other was jumping up and down as the flame of a lamp does when the oil is done.So, by the aid of its dying light, we hastened to crawl out of the little chamber and clamber up the side of the great stone.

As we did so the light went out.The difference in our position was a sufficiently remarkable one.Below, in the little chamber, we had only heard the roaring of the gale overheadhere, lying on our faces on the swinging stone, we were exposed to its full force and fury, as the great draught drew first from this direction and then from that, howling against the mighty precipice and through the rocky cliffs like ten thousand despairing souls.We lay there hour after hour in terror and misery of mind so deep that I will not attempt to describe it, and listened to the wild storm-voices of that Tartarus, as, set to the deep undertone of the spur opposite, against which the wind hummed like some awful harp, they called to each other from precipice to precipice.No nightmare dreamed by man, no wild invention of the romancer, can ever equal the living horror of that place, and the weird crying of those voices of the night, as we clung like shipwrecked mariners to a raft, and tossed on the black, unfathomed wilderness of air.Fortunately the temperature was not a low one; indeed, the wind was warm, or we should have perished.So we clung and listened, and while we were stretched out upon the rock a thing happened which was so curious and suggestive in itself, though doubtless a mere coincidence, that, if anything, it added to, rather than deducted from, the burden on our nerves.