"Now," said the captain, "how are we steering?"

"Nearly due south," said the mate, glancing at a pocket-compass.

"Then you are right, Gregory, and this is the nearest way home."

"If it is an island, father," said Mark, smiling.

"And that it must be, Mark, my lad, and a very small one, as we shall see."



CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

HOW THAT FISH MEANT MISCHIEF, AND BECAME MEAT.

Their way still led them along the peaceful waters which girt the island—for so they now felt that they might venture to call it—the strong barrier reef of coral keeping back the heaving swell of the ocean, which foamed and broke outside, leaving the lagoon perfectly calm, save here and there where they came across an opening in the reef through which a fleet might apparently have sailed into fairly deep anchorage, sheltered from the wildest storm and the roughest sea.

Here and there the reef was so far above water that vegetation had taken root, and young cocoa-nut trees were springing up to form the beginning of a grove, but for the most part there was the dead coral, the gleaming sand, and the pearly foam glistening in the sun.

No currents to stay them, no rough winds to check. Their journey might have been upon some peaceful lake, whose left-hand shore was one succession of cocoa-nut groves; and beyond that, rocky jungle, full of ridge and hollow, mound of verdure, and darksome glade and chasm, down which trickled streams of water, such as had risen in the heights which culminated in the smoking cone of the volcano, while here and there the streams gave marked traces of their sources by sending up faint clouds of steam.

Mark felt as he lay back in the stern and gazed at the glorious panorama that he could watch the various phases of beauty in the landscape for ever. But then he was not rowing, and the motion of the boat and the dipping of his hands in the water kept him comparatively cool.

Still, in spite of its beauty it was impossible to gaze shoreward without a feeling of awe. For there had been that trembling of the earth; there were here and there openings in the trees through which vast blackened roads of rock seemed to come down to the sea, zigzag tracks which it was plain enough were the cooled-down and hardened streams of lava which had made their way to the sea during some eruption of the calmly beautiful mountain which rose so peacefully toward the clouds, one of which seemed to have remained to act as its feathery crown.

Then, too, there was the remembrance of that terrible roar which they had heard in the jungle, and every now and then Mark's eyes searched the trees at the edge beyond the sands, and he longed with a sensation of shrinking to catch sight of the creature which had given them all so much alarm.

But search how he would, as the boat went steadily on, there was no sign of animal life ashore but the birds. Once or twice he fancied he could see something like a lizard run across the heated rocks, but he could not be sure. But of birds there seemed to be plenty. Flocks of doves, large lavender-plumed pigeons, white cockatoos, long-tailed lories, and parrots whose feathers bore all the colours of the rainbow; but shorewards that was all. In the lagoon it was very different.

"Sha'n't want for fish," said Gregory, as he dipped his oar—he and the captain now giving the men a rest.

As he spoke a shoal was making the water dance just ahead and completely changing its colour, for, as they fed upon the small fry with which the surface gleamed, the sea was dappled with rings, serried with ridges, and seemed as if it were a fluid of mingled gold and silver beneath which some volcanic action was going on, which made it boil and flush and ripple till the bows of the gig reached the shoal, and then instantaneously the surface became calm.

"Plenty of work for you, Mark," said the captain. "You will have to be head of our fishing department, and keep our little colony supplied."

"You must get Small to help you make a net," said Gregory, "and contrive some long lines."

They ceased rowing, for they were now opposite a spot where the jungle came close to the edge of the lagoon, being only separated by a smooth patch of sand. Here, too, were quite a flock of the maleo birds, scratching and searching for food, after the fashion of fowl; but as the boat stopped they took alarm, and seemed to skim over the sand, their feet striking the ground so rapidly as to become invisible.

"They can run," said the mate; "but we seem to have learned their secret. What's that?"

All listened, but there was no sound.

"I fancied I heard a low distant roaring noise," said the mate, dipping his oar again, "but I may have been mistaken."

The captain was in the act of dipping his own oar when Billy Widgeon, who was seated just in front of Mark, whose place was right astern, turned sharply and caught the lad's arm:

"Look, Mr Mark, sir, look!" he cried, pointing with his other hand, "there he goes!"

"Who?" cried Mark excitedly; "a savage?"

"Yes, sir," said Billy, grinning and holding Bruff, "savage enough. Nay, nay, my lad, you lie down. It wouldn't do you no good to go overboard now."

"A large one, too," said the captain, resting on his oar.

"Ay, he's a nasty customer," said the mate.

"What is?" cried Mark eagerly. "What is it you can all see?"

"Shark!" said the captain.

"Where? Where? I want to see a shark."

Mark's eyes were roving all about, but he saw nothing in any direction save a little dark triangular piece of something, with the forward side a little curved, and this was moving slowly through the water.

"There, my lad, there," said the captain; "can't you see his back fin?"

"Is that a shark?" said Mark, in a disappointed tone, as the black object, looking like the thick lateen sail of some tiny invisible boat, glided along the surface not fifty yards away, and making as if to cross their bows.

"Yes," said the captain, "that's the fin of a shark, ten-feet long I should say."

"And I a dozen," said the mate.

"Like to see him a little closer?" said the captain.

"Yes," cried Mark eagerly; and then he wished he had said "No," for the oars were, after a pull or two, laid inboard, while the captain took hold of the sharply-pointed hitcher, and held it balanced in his hand.

The impetus given to the boat was sufficient to drive it onward, so that it was evident that the back fin of the shark and the bows of the gig would arrive at the same point together, and Mark rose eagerly to see what would follow, when the captain made him a sign.

Mark sat down, and suddenly saw the shark's fin stop some three or four yards from the boat, change its position, and come end on towards where he was seated; and his eyes were fixed so firmly on this that he quite started, as he saw before it, and very close to where he sat, a dark-looking body, with a rounded snout and two pig-like eyes.

"Don't know what to make on us, Mr Mark, sir," said Billy Widgeon, grinning. "See his old shovel nose?"

"Yes," said Mark, "but I can't see his mouth. I thought they had great gaping mouths, full of sharp teeth."

"He keeps his rat-trap down underneath him, sir, so as not to frighten the fishes."

"Hand me that gun, Mark," said the mate.

Mark passed it along; and as he did so the shark glided round the stern, and came along the other side.

"You don't think he'll attack us, do you?" said the captain.

"There's no knowing what a jack-shark will do," said the mate, quietly cocking both barrels, and making the muzzle of the gun follow the movements of the great fish, whose elongated form was perfectly plain now in the clear water as he slowly glided on. The long unequally-lobed tail waved softly to and fro like a peculiarly-formed paddle, and the motion of the fish seemed to be peculiarly effortless as he went on right past the gig, and continued his course a dozen yards ahead.

"Off!" said the captain laconically; but as he spoke the shark turned, and the fin came toward them again, always at the same distance above the water, and again on their starboard side, by which it glided, went astern, and turned, to come back once more.

"Hadn't we two better pull, sir?" said Billy. "He means mischief, that he do."

"Think he'll attack?" said the captain again.

"I'm beginning to think he will," said Mr Gregory.

He had hardly spoken when the shark turned, and there was an eddying swirl in the water where his tail gave a vigorous stroke or two, and almost simultaneously a long glistening cruel-looking head rose out of the water.

The monkey uttered a shriek, and would have leaped overboard in his fright, but for Billy Widgeon's restraining hand, when the poor little animal took refuge beneath his legs, while Bruff set up a furious bark, his hair ruffling up about his neck, and his eyes glistening with anger.

But shriek or yell had no influence upon the hungry shark, which seemed to glide like a glistening curve or arch of shark right over the bows of the boat, striking her side in the descent as the fish passed into the sea again; but so heavy was the blow, and so great the creature's weight, that the gig was extremely near being capsized.

"Pass me the other gun, Mark," cried the captain. "Look out, Gregory, whatever you do. Another attack like that, and the brute will have us over, and—"

He left his sentence unfinished, while Mark passed the gun, and then resumed his grasp of the thwart upon which he was seated, holding on with both hands, while in the agony of dread he suffered the great drops of perspiration stood out upon his forehead, and ran together, and trickled down the sides of his nose, as his breath came thick and fast.

Some very heroic lads would, no doubt, have drawn a knife, or seized an oar, or done something else very brave in defence, but in those brief moments Mark was recalling stories he had read about sharks seizing struggling people as they were swimming, and that the water was stained with blood, and one way and another he was as thoroughly frightened as ever he had been in his life.

"Now, then!" said the captain, as the shark completed another circuit of the boat, and was about to repeat his evolution. "Both together at his head, and fire low as he rises."

It was a quick shot on the part of both, delivered just as the shark rose from the water again to leap at the boat, which probably represented to him an eatable fish swimming on the surface, while, as the two puffs of smoke darted from the guns and the loud reports rang out, the great fish fell short, but struck its nose against the side of the gig, and sank down in the water, the back fin disappearing, and coming up again fifty yards away.

"I think we'll be contented," said the captain, closing the breech of his piece, and passing it to Mark. "Let's make a masterly retreat, Gregory."

"Think he'll come back?"

"I should say no," replied the captain. "The brute has evidently had quite as much as he requires for the present."

"Will it kill him?" asked Mark.

"Can't say. I should think not. He must be badly wounded though, to sheer off like that."

"Look at that," shouted Billy Widgeon excitedly, as all of a sudden the shark was seen to leap clear out of the water, and fall back with a tremendous splash, not head first, so as to dive down, but on its flank, sending the water flying, while directly after the sea in that direction became tremendously agitated, sending waves toward them sufficiently big to make the boat rise and fall.

"He's in his flurry, Mr Mark, sir," said Billy Widgeon gleefully. "I can't abear sharks."

"Pull hard, Gregory," said the captain; "the sooner we are away from here the better."

He spoke in a low voice, and exchanged meaning glances with the mate, who at once bent to his oar.

"No, no: don't go," cried Mark. "I should like to see him when he's dead."

"I'm afraid there will be no shark to see," said the captain grimly, as the gig surged through the water.

"Why, there's his back fin, and there it is again and again," cried Mark. "How he keeps curving out of the water and dashing about! I say, father, row back and put him out of his misery."

"I daresay he is out of it by this time, my boy," said the captain, rowing hard.

"But there he is again, swimming round and beating the water."

"Why, Mark, can't you see that the water there is alive with sharks, and that they are devouring their wounded brother—fighting for the choice morsels, I dare say. This is a warning never to bathe except in some pool."

"What! do you think? Oh, I see now! How horrible!" said Mark.

"Horrible, eh?" grunted Gregory. "I wish they'd make a day of it, and eat one another all up. We could get on very well without sharks."

Mark said no more about putting their enemy out of his misery, but sat watching till, at the end of a few minutes, the surface of the lagoon grew calm; but until they had turned a low spit of sand, the black fins of at least a dozen sharks could be seen cruising round and round, and to and fro, in search of something more to satisfy their ravenous hunger.

"We are getting some experience of the dangers we shall have to encounter," said the captain, as the scene of their late conflict with the shark passed completely out of their sight, and they rowed on steadily. "That's your first shark, Mark, eh?"

"Yes," said Mark, thoughtfully, "I shall know what a shark is now."

"I think we'll give them a turn now, Gregory," said the captain. "No, no, one at a time," he cried angrily, as the men sprang up together. "We must not capsize the boat here. Now you, my man," he continued, sitting fast, as the sailor stepped across and took the mate's place before Mr Gregory rose. "Now you, Widgeon."

Billy crept very softly into the captain's place, and the latter seated himself on the thwart in front of Mark, to be joined directly by Gregory.

"There," cried Mark, as the oars dipped, "I heard it. There."

"What?" said his father.

"That roaring which Mr Gregory heard."

"It was the creaking and groaning of the oars in the tholes."

"No, no, father. It was that deep savage roar heard ever so far off."

They ceased rowing again and again, but the sound was heard no more, and the captain began to talk rather anxiously to Mr Gregory as the sun grew low in the west, and it became evident that they had a long way yet to row.

"Tired, Mark?" cried the captain.

"No, father," he replied, laughing; "but if you'll say hungry, I'll tell you: Yes, very."

"Ah, well, I keep hoping that every headland we pass may bring us in sight of the camp! It cannot be very far now."

"But suppose it isn't an island," said Mark; "we might be rowing right away."

"Come, come," cried the captain cheerily; "you the son of a navigator, and talking like this. Now, then, which way did we row when we started?"

"North-east," said Mark.

"And then?"

"North."

"Yes, go on."

"Then I think we went north-west."

"Well, and after that?"

"West, father."

"Then as we ran from the shark we went south, didn't we?"

"I don't know," said Mark. "I was too intent on the way in which they were tearing him to pieces."

"Well, you might have said you were too frightened to notice," said the captain, smiling. "You need not have been ashamed. But come now, which way are we going now?"

"Away from the sun," replied Mark, who felt no inclination to show that he had felt too much alarmed to take any notice of the direction they rowed. "I suppose we must be going east."

"Well, then, if you started by going east, and kept on rowing till you are going east again, I think you may conclude that you have gone nearly round a piece of land, and that the said piece is an island. It might not be, for we may be going right into some gulf; but this place looks as much like an island as is possible, and I don't think it can be anything else."

"Island," said Gregory, gruffly, "volcanic, and the coral has risen up round it, and kept it from being washed away."

"But could an island like this have been washed away?" said Mark.

"To be sure it could, my boy," said the captain. "From what I have seen a great deal of it is loose scoria. You saw plenty of big stones lying about?"

"Yes," replied Mark, "but they were huge stones. Some of them must weigh half a ton."

Mark knew that half a ton meant ten hundredweight; but his comparison was a shot at a venture, for he had no idea how big, or rather how small, a rock is which weighs half a ton.

"I don't think the sea would make much of a rock weighing half a ton, Mark," said the captain, smiling. "Why, in one of our great storms it would move that almost as easily as if it were a pebble. Mr Gregory is quite right. Volcanic islands have before now been formed, and been in eruption for a long time, and then been slowly swept away by the action of the sea."

"How long to sundown, sir?" said Mr Gregory.

"Half an hour," said the captain, after a glance at the slowly descending orb.

"And then it will be dark directly. What do you say, sir, give it up, land and set up camp, or keep on?"

"Keep on, Gregory," said the captain, quietly. "There is a headland away yonder. Once we get round that we may see home. Tired, my lads?"

"Tidy, sir," said Billy Widgeon. "But if it's all the same to you, we'd rather keep on as long as we can."

"Why, Billy?" asked Mark.

"Well, sir, since you put it like that," said the little sailor, smiling sheepishly, "it is that."

"Is what, Billy?"

"Why, what you mean, sir. You meant wittles. That's what you was a-thinking about. You see if we goes ashore we shall have to pick they fowls, and make a fire, and wait till they're cooked afore we can eat 'em, and to men as hungry as we, sir, that's a deal wuss than rowing a few miles; eh, mate?"

This was to the man at the oar forward. The response was an affirmatory grunt.

"There, Gregory," said the captain, "what do you say now?"

"Keep on," replied Gregory, shortly. "Widgeon is right."

The island never seemed more beautiful to them than now as the sun went down lower and lower till, like a great fiery globe, it nearly touched the sea: for rock, jungle, and the central mountainous clump, with the conical volcano dominating all, was seen through a glorious golden haze, while the sea was first purple and gold, and then orange, changing slowly into crimson.

The sun disappeared just as they rounded the point for which they had been making; but still there was no sign of the camp. Nothing but the purple lagoon stretching on and on, with the creamy line of surf on one side, the fringe of cocoa-nut trees right down to the sand on the other.

"A good clear row at all events," said the captain. "Here, Gregory, let's take the oars and pull till we can't see."

The mate changed places with the sailor in front, the captain took Billy Widgeon's oar, and the boat began to travel more rapidly, but still there was no sign of the camp. The stars came out, the water seemed to turn black, and in a very short time all was darkness; but there was no difficulty in keeping on, for the light-coloured sands on the one side acted as a guide, and the roar of the breakers on the reef kept them away on the other.

There was something very awe-inspiring though in the journey in the dark; and in spite of himself Mark could not help feeling that it was rather uncanny to be riding over the black water with what seemed to be golden serpents rushing away in undulating fashion on either side. Then, too, there was a curious quivering glow, something like an aurora, playing about the top of the mountain on their left; while all at once, plainly heard now by all, there came the distant roar of the creature which had so far remained undiscovered.

"We must be getting near home now," said the captain quietly, "for that sound comes always from the north-west of the camp."

He spoke calmly enough, but Mark detected a peculiarity in his voice which he had noted before when his father was anxious, and this finally gave place to words.

"I hope the women have not been alarmed by that sound, Gregory," he said at last.

"I hope so too," said the mate quietly. "It may be a timid creature after all. I believe it's one of those great orang-outangs. I've never heard one, but I've read that they can roar terribly."

"I hope it's nothing worse," said the captain in a low tone.

"Keep on, of course?" whispered Gregory.

"I think so, as long as we can see. We must have nearly circumnavigated the island, and it will have been a splendid day's work to have discovered the ship and done that too."

"I've got two hours' more row in me," said Gregory quietly. "By that time the men will have another hour in them, and at the worst we could manage another hour afterwards. Before then we must have reached camp."

"Ah, what's that?" cried the captain as the boat struck something.

"Bock," cried Gregory. "No, too soft."

"Row! row!" said Mark. "It was a monstrous fish—a shark."

"You could not see it?" cried the captain hoarsely, as he bent to his oar, Gregory following his example, so that the boat surged through the water.

"I saw something dark amongst these golden eel things, and they all seemed to rush away like lightning."

There was a dead silence in the boat for the next quarter of an hour, during which the rowers pulled with all their might. No one spoke for fear of giving vent to his thoughts—thoughts suggested by the adventure early in the day; but every one sat there fully expecting to see the savage-looking head of some shark thrust from the water and come over into the boat.

The suffering was for a time intense, but no further shock was felt, and as the minutes glided away their hopes rose that if this last were an enemy they were rapidly leaving it behind.

All at once Mark half rose from his place.

"Is that the light over the mountain?" he exclaimed.

"Nay," cried Billy, "that's a fire. You can see it gleam on the water."

"Hurrah!" cried Gregory, "then that means home, and they are keeping it up as a guide."

Another quarter of an hour's rowing proved this, for a big fire was blazing upon the sand, and before long they were able to make out moving figures and the fire being replenished, the leaping up of the flames and the ruddy smoke ascending high in the air.

"Now, then, give a hail," said the captain, "to let them know we're safe. They'll think we are coming from the other direction."

Billy Widgeon uttered a loud "Ahoy!" and then putting two fingers in his mouth, brought forth an ear-piercing whistle.

A distant "Ahoy!" came back, and a whistle so like Billy Widgeon's that it might have been its echo, while directly after there was a flash and then a report.

"A signal from the major," said the captain. "There, Mark, a chance for you. Fire in the air."

Mark caught up the gun, held the butt on the thwart, and drew trigger, when the flash and report cut the air and echoed from the wood.

Another ten minutes' hard pull and the boat touched the sands close to the fire, where all were gathered in eager expectancy of the lost voyagers, who had, to meet the complaints about dread and anxiety, the news of their discoveries.

"But you have not been much alarmed, I hope?" said the captain, drawing his wife's hand through his arm.

"But we have, captain," cried the major; "for Morgan and I have been in momentary expectation of an attack from that terrible wild beast."

"But there, you are tired and starving," said Mrs Strong. "We have food waiting. Sit down and rest, and we'll tell you all the while."



CHAPTER THIRTY THREE.

HOW THE CIRCUMNAVIGATORS RESTED AND HEARD NEWS.

"This here's just what I like, mates," said Billy Widgeon, as he sat on the sand in the full light of the blazing fire with his fellow-sailor opposite to him, and a large piece of palm-leaf for a table-cloth. Jack was on his right munching fruit, and Bruff on his left, sitting up, patiently attentive, waiting for bones from the hissing, hot maleo bird that had been kept for the sailors' dinner.

Small and the other men were close by smoking, and Jimpny, with his head neatly and cleanly bandaged, was lying upon his chest, resting his elbows on the sand and his chin in his hands, kicking up his heels as he stared at Billy Widgeon and listened to his adventures.

Billy was hungry, and so was his mate, and when Billy carved he prepared so to do by opening his jack-knife and whetting it on his boot, after which he seized the bird, which was double the size of a large fowl, by one leg.

"Now, shipmet," he said to his companion, "lay holt o' t'other understanding with both hands, and when I say haul! you put your back into it."

The sailor took hold of the leg, Billy held on by the other, and placed the blade of the knife between two of the fingers of the left hand while he made believe to spit in his right. Then seizing the knife firmly, he plunged the point right into the breast of the fat, juicy bird, a gush of gravy came oozing out, and he began to cut so as to divide the food into two equal portions.

"My hye! he is a joosty one," cried Billy. "It's worth waiting till now to get a treat like this, mates. Can't you smell him? Anyone going to jyne in?"

"No," said Small; "we've all had plenty, my hearty. So go on, and tell us all about what you've done to-day."

"All right!" cried Billy. "Now, then, messmet, she's nearly through. Now haul, my son. Hauly, hi, ho!"

Billy's fellow-traveller hauled at the bird's leg; but that bird was rather overdone. Mrs Strong, aided by Mary O'Halloran as cook and kitchen-maid, had done their best in the rock kitchen with a fire of cocoa-nut shells and barks; but some piled-up pieces of coral and basalt, though they are great helps, do not form a patent prize kitchener; and though the result was very tempting to hungry men, there was a want of perfection in the browning of that bird. In fact here and there it was a bit burned, notably in its right leg—the one Billy's companion held—and that leg was so horribly charred that when the man hauled it snapped off like a burned stick, and the bird, by the recoil and drag, came right into Billy's lap.

"What are you up to now?" cried the latter. "Well, you are a chap, playing your larks when we're so hungry! Don't you want none?"

As he spoke, he worked his knife to and fro, and ended by making a division of the bird that could hardly be called a fair one.

"Look at that," he said. "You've got first pick, as I'm carver; and though I feels a deal o' respect for you, matey, I don't think as how as you'd pick out the smallest bit, and hang me if I would, so here goes for another try."

Billy made another cut at the bird, hewing off a good slice of the plump breast, which he laid on to the smaller side, giving it a flap with his blade to make it stick, and then passed it over.

"There," he said, "that's fair; so here goes to begin. Hullo, matey, won't you bite?" he continued to the dog. "There, then, you can amoose yourself with them till your betters is done."

He hacked off the bird's head and neck; and after slicing off a portion of the meat, added the drumstick to Bruff's share. He then began eating voraciously, giving his messmates a version of their "adventers," as he called them, since the morning.

Billy would have made a splendid writer of fiction—a most exciting narrator, for he forgot nothing, and he added thereto in a wonderful manner. He threw in, with his mouth full, touches of description that made his companion stare, and his eloquence about the blackened hull of the vessel was wonderful.

"Talk about charkle fires," he cried; "why, if my old mother was here she'd nail the lot and save it, to use up the fruit off some of these here trees and make jam."

"Why, you can't make jam out of a burnt ship," said the stowaway.

"Who ever said you could, Davy Jimpny?" cried Billy. "But you wants charkle to make it with, don't yer?"

"Yes, if you can't get coke," said the stowaway sadly.

"Well, I aren't seen no gasworks on those here shores nowheres, and so you can't get no coke, can you?"

"Course not."

"Well, then, charkle it is. The whole deck's charkle, and so's the bulwarks, and the chunk end o' the bowsprit?"

"And the masts, Billy?" said Small.

"Dessay they are, but they're floated away. The whole ship's a reg'lar cellar."

Billy then got on about the length of time they stopped, about the wonderful nature of the crater bay, and the depth of the water.

"Why, when you was rowing acrost it you could feel as it must go right through to the other side, it was so deep. No water couldn't be so black as that was without being hundreds o' knots deep."

"I say, Billy, ain't you getting hundreds o' knots into your yarn?" said Small.

"Not I, bosun. It's all fact; you ask my mate here if it aren't. I suppose you don't want to know about that there shark?" he continued, as he picked a bone in a very ungentlemanly manner, taking his hands to it, and once leaving it stuck across his mouth like a horse's bit, while he altered his position.

"Oh yes, we do! Let's hear about the shark," cried all present.

"Well," said Billy, "there aren't much to tell, only that as we was going along I says to the skipper, I says, 'There's a whacking great shark along yonder.'

"'Ay, Billy,' he says, 'that's a thumper, and no mistake.'

"There he was, going round and round us with his back fin above water, just like a steam launch, and before you knew where you was he puts his head out o' water, gives a squint at us to see which was the best looking to swaller—"

"And he chose you, Billy, because you've got such short legs as wouldn't kick about much when you was down."

"Wrong, Mr Small, sir," said Billy, handing the remains of his half of the bird to the dog and cleaning his knife by sticking it in and out of the sand; "wrong, sir. I think he meant Jack here; but the monkey squeals out and hops under my legs in no time, and Mr Jack-shark alters his mind and goes for Muster Gregory, shoots out o' the water, he does, and he was aboard of us afore we knowed where we was."

"Get out!" said Small.

"It's a fact, Mr Small, sir; ask my mate if it aren't. He didn't stop aboard cause he come crostwise over the bows; but there he was aboard for a moment afore he slips off, and when he comes round to try it again the skipper and Mr Greg lets him have it out o' their guns, and scared him off; and, bless your 'arts, I have seen a few rum games in the sea, but the way his mates chawed him up arterwards beat everything. Why, the lagoon, as they calls it, was chock full o' sharks—millions of 'em."

"Were there now, Billy?" said Small, smiling.

"Well, of course I can't say to a few, for we was a good ways off; but what I do say is that it seemed the sharkiest spot I ever see; and, if they'd only have stood still, you might have walked on their backs for miles."

"Give Billy Widgeon a cocoa-nut to stop his talk," said the boatswain; "and there's a bit o' 'bacco for you, Billy, to clear your memory, my lad."

"Oh, my memory's clear enough, Mr Small, sir," said Billy, who was eating something all the time; "but thanky all the same. And now, how have you got on?"

"Oh," said the boatswain, "we've had a bit of a scare!"

But a narration of this was being given where the other occupants of the boat were partaking of their evening meal.

"Did the creature seem to come any nearer?" said the captain as the little group sat beneath the edge of the cocoa-nut grove, satisfying themselves with the reflected light of the men's fire, which had been lit as a beacon to attract them home.

"I think yes, decidedly," said Morgan, who was rapidly getting better.

"So did I at first," said the major; "but I have been in Africa as well as India, and have heard lions roar. When one of these gentlemen is doing a bit of nightingale he roars in one direction, then in another, now with his head up, and now with it down; and when you add to it that he roars loud and roars soft, he seems to be quite a ventriloquist, and you are puzzled."

"But I think the animal came nearer, my dear," said Mrs O'Halloran.

"I think so, too," said Mrs Strong.

"I'm sure it did, papa," cried Mary.

"Then I'm not," said her father. "It is impossible to tell how near a cry from a jungle may be."

"Well," said the captain, "it is not pleasant to know that such a savage creature is close to our camp. Something must be done."

"Seems a pity to pull up stakes and move," said the major.

"Pity!" said the captain. "Suppose we do move to the far side, we shall still be within reach. We are fixed here, and it seems to me to be the best spot we can find, and the farthest from the volcano. I'm afraid it must be a case of war. Either our friend must be driven away or killed. What do you say, major, to an expedition in search of him?"

"I'm willing," said the major.

"But the risk?" said Mrs Strong.

"More risk in waiting to be attacked than in attacking," said the captain. "I feel that we must put this danger beyond doubt, or we shall have everyone in the camp suffering from nervousness."

"If you would wait a few days I could be of some use," said Morgan.

"Then we will wait a few days," said the captain sharply. "It will give you something to anticipate and help you to get well."

"I am well now," replied Morgan. "I only want strength."

The report of all was the same, that over and over again the creature had been heard to roar savagely, and to be at times very close at hand.

Still all this did not interfere with Mark's appetite. On the whole, though sorry that his mother and the O'Hallorans should have been alarmed, he was rather pleased to find that he had been right in his belief that from time to time he could hear the roaring. Maleo bird roasted—the repast being made off those that were first shot—was excellent; so was the acid fruit squeezed over it—fruit picked by Mrs O'Halloran while the others cooked. Then there was a kind of oyster which was delicious roasted in its shells. And one way and another Mark felt that he had never before partaken of so appetising a repast, especially as he sat sipping cocoa-nut milk when it was done.

Everyone was in good spirits, for the captain promised tea and chocolate from the stores that were untouched by fire, and plenty of flour and biscuit—treasures, which would make their stay on the island far more bearable, without counting upon the many other things which the ship would supply.

At last they separated to their couches of leaves and sand, after an arrangement being made for an early start next day to explore the island by a party well armed and ready to do battle with any enemy that might present itself.

Mark's, sleeping-place was next to the major's now, the hospital being closed, for the stowaway wanted to be along with his mates; and the other wounded sailor sturdily declared that he was quite well now, and walked very nimbly to the men's hut.

Mark recollected lying down, and then all was perfectly blank till he began dreaming in the morning that his father told him that he was not to go with the expedition; but just then the savage beast in the jungle roared and repeated its cry in a way which suggested that he was to come, for the creature particularly wanted him.

This woke him; but all was perfectly still, and he could not tell whether the sound had rung upon his ears or not.

It was daylight though, and, rising, he went out, to find that Small and Mr Morgan were taking the morning watch, while Billy Widgeon was lighting a fire in the rock kitchen.

He was very sleepy still, and his couch coaxed; but he mastered the sluggishness, fetched his piece of calico which did duty for a towel, and after a careful inspection of the water, in company with Mr Morgan, he had a good bathe, and came back to shore feeling as if filled with new life, and ready for the expedition of the coming adventurous day.



CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR.

HOW BILLY WIDGEON WENT SOMEWHERE.

The preparations were soon made, and directly after breakfast, in spite of Mr Morgan's desire to be of the company, the little band of half the occupants of the isle gathered for the start. Mr Gregory was obliged to remain and take charge of the camp, leaving the captain free to be the head, with the major for his lieutenant, Small, Billy Widgeon, and two other men.

Mark was to be left behind, but a piteous appeal reversed the edict, and, armed with a gun, he took his place with the expedition folk ready for the start.

They took a bag or two for fruit and game, a small amount of luncheon for each, and their arms and ammunition. Thus equipped and with the good wishes of those they left behind, the party set off for the creek where the nipah-palms grew, and up the path followed by Mark and the major before, but with the intention of turning off where the steam issued from the earth, as everyone seemed to select the jungle between that and the mountain-slope as being the spot from whence the roaring sounds were heard.

Backed by the knowledge already gained, there was not much difficulty in reaching the scene of the fright with the supposed serpent; and here they paused to try the ground, which sent out puffs of steam with a loud hiss directly it was pierced.

Billy Widgeon shook his head at it and looked at Small, who frowned, took off his cap, and scratched his head, as if he did not approve of the place as one for a walk.

Just then there was a capital opportunity for a shot at the great pigeons; but shooting was forbidden until their return, the object being to trace the strange creature if possible and see what it was like.

"It can't be a crocodile," said the major, "for there is no river up this way except this bit of a stream; great snake I can't believe it is; what is it, then?"

"The only way is to examine every bit of soft ground for traces of footprints," said the captain. "Nearly every beast has its times for going to drink; so we ought to get some inkling of what it is like at the various springs."

They were not long in coming to one in a hollow beneath a great pile of moss-grown rock down whose sides trickled the water to form at last a good-sized pool of the most limpid kind; but the mossy boggy earth around was untrodden, the water clear, and no trace to be seen of a single footprint other than their own.

The water was delicious on that hot day in the steamy jungle, and the band was refreshed—Mark having hard work to refrain from chasing some gorgeous butterfly of green and gold, or with wings painted in pearl-blue, steel, and burnished silver. At other times some lovely kingfisher, with elongated tail, settled almost within reach. Then it would be a green barbet, with bristle-armed beak and bright blue and scarlet feathers to make it gay. Or again, one of the cuckoo trogons, sitting on some twig, like a ball of feathers of bronze, golden green, and salmon rose.

But this was not a collecting trip. Earnest investigation was the order of the day; and after carefully taking their bearings the captain pressed on, with their way always on the ascent and growing wilder and more rocky.

This had its advantages as well as its disadvantages; for though the path was from time to time one continuous climb, they were not compelled to force their way through tangled growth, with trees bound together by canes and creepers, as if nature were roughly weaving a stockade.

Another stream was passed rising out of a boggy patch of ground, and here footprints were plentiful, but they were only those of birds that had been down to drink.

Onward again, and to ascend a steep precipitous slope right before them they had to descend into a dank, dark, gloomy-looking gorge, whose vegetation was scarce, and yet the place seemed to grow hotter as they went down.

A peculiar whistling sound came now from before them, and they stopped to listen, with the day evidently growing hotter, for down in the gorge there was not a breath of air; while as they listened the whistling grew louder and was accompanied by another in a different key, the two producing a curious dissonant sound for a few minutes, increasing rapidly, and then ceased, to be followed by absolute silence, and then a dull sound followed as if something had burst.

"Steam—a hot spring, I should say," exclaimed the captain, going cautiously forward, parting the low growth as he went.

His progress became slower, and at the end of a minute he stopped and stepped cautiously back.

"Not safe," he said; "my feet were sinking in. We must go farther round."

He led the way, and they forced their way through the sickly-looking bushes till they came all at once upon a glistening patch of whitish-looking mud some thirty or forty yards round, and above which the atmosphere seemed to be quivering, if it were not so much clear steam rising in the air.

Here they found the cause of the noise, for as they approached there was a tiny jet of steam issuing from one side near the dense growth of a peculiar grass, and when this had been whistling for about a minute, another jet burst out on the other side, whistling in the different key, while in the middle of the mud-pool there was a quivering and rifting of the surface, followed by the formation of a huge bubble, which kept on rising up larger and larger till it was a big globe of quite two feet high, when it suddenly burst with a peculiar sound, as if someone had said the word Beff! in a low whisper.

This occurred several times before they went on, having vainly searched the borders of the mud-pool for footmarks; and at the end of another few hundred yards loud hissing and shrieking noises led them to another pool, but, far from being so quiescent as that which they had left behind, this was all in commotion. The hot shining mud was bubbling furiously, rising in mud bladders, which were incessantly rising and dancing all over the surface, while one in the middle, larger than the rest, rose and burst with a loud puff.

Very little steam was visible, and though here too the edge of the pool was examined, there was not even the footprint of a bird.

Still ascending, and with traces of the volcanic action growing more frequent as they progressed, the mud springs were left behind, and an opening reached so beautiful, that all stopped to rest in the shade of a wild durian tree, whose fruit were about the size of small cricket balls, and chancing the fall of the woody spinous husk, all sat down to admire the beauty of the mountain rising before them, and to partake of some of the fallen fruit.

They would not have been touched if the major had not pounced upon them, and declared that they were a delicacy; but as soon as he opened one with his knife, and handed it to Mark, that gentleman's nose curled, in company with his lip, and he threw the fruit down.

"Pah! it's a bad one," he exclaimed.

"Bad! you young ignoramus!" cried the major, taking up the fallen fruit, and beginning to pick out its seeds and custardy interior with his knife. "You have no taste."

"But it smells so horrible!" cried Mark.

"Bah! Don't think about the smell. Taste it."

He opened another, and handed it to Mark, who, seeing that his father was eating one, proceeded cautiously to taste the evil-smelling object, and found in it so peculiarly grateful a flavour that he tried it again and again, and before he knew what he was about he had finished it.

"Try another, Mark," said the major. "I learned to eat these at Singapore, where they cultivate them, and they are twice as big, often three times."

Mark took another, and sniffed at it, to find when he had done that Billy Widgeon had been looking on with an air of the most profound contempt.

"Haven't you had one, Billy?" said Mark eagerly.

"Haven't I had one, Mr Mark, sir! No, I haven't; and how people of eddication can go and eat such things as them is more'n I can make out."

"You try one," said Mark. "They're lovely."

"Too lovely for me, Mr Mark, sir. I'm going to have a chew of tobacco!"

Mark was so highly pleased with his experiment that he turned to Small, who was seated staring straight before him and listening.

"Try one of these, Mr Small," he said.

Small took the fruit, smelt it, and then jerked it away.

"Don't you try to play larks on them as is older than yourself, young gentleman," he said so sourly that Mark walked away discomfited, and the boatswain went on listening till the sound he had heard increased in violence, and he found that everyone was on the qui vive.

"It comes from over the other side of that rocky patch of hill," said the major, pointing. "It's a waterfall, and we did not hear it before on account of the wind."

But if it was a waterfall, and that it sounded to be, it ceased flowing as rapidly and suddenly as it had begun, for once more all was still in that direction, and they sat resting and gazing with mingled feelings of awe and delight at the glorious landscape of black and brown rock and wondrous ferny growth rising before them from beyond a little valley at their feet right up to the summit of the mountain, about whose top the little cloud of smoke or vapour still hung.

It was a never-to-be-forgotten scene of beauty that no one cared to leave, but the captain soon gave the word, for he was desirous of finding some sign of the strange creature that had caused so much alarm.

They had climbed far above the spot whence the sounds seemed to come, but all felt that probably the beast would come down from the mountain and make that his home; and in this belief the party once more started, directing their course so as to go down and round the rocky eminence in face of where they stood, and then begin to climb the mountain where it steadily rose in one long slope to the summit.

The major was leading as they went down, and he had no sooner reached a spot whence he could see beyond the long mass of rock than he waved his hand for the party to come on.

Mark was the first to reach him, and as he did so it was to see a tall column of water as big as a man's body rush down a hole, which seemed to have been formed in the centre of a pale stony-looking basin.

"Look, my lad, look!" cried the major.

There was no occasion for him to speak, for Mark was already gazing with a feeling of shrinking awe at another of these stony basins, in which a quantity of clear hot water was boiling up and steaming. It rose from a hole in the middle, quite four feet in diameter, and simmered and bubbled and danced, and then suddenly disappeared down the hole with a hideous gurgling, rushing sound, followed by horrible rumblings and gurgitations in what seemed to be an enormous pipe of stone.

Once more it rushed to the surface, and then disappeared again, leaving the opening clear of water, so that the major went to the stony bottom of the basin, or saucer, to try whether it was slippery; and finding it firm, he walked on to where he could gaze down the well-like hole.

He did not stop many moments, but stepped back.

"Horrid!" he said. "Right down into blackness. Come and look."

Mark hesitated for a moment, and then took the hand his father extended, and they walked down the slope of the basin to where the opening gaped.

As they reached it there was a puff of hot vapour sent up, followed by hollow roaring sounds, mingled with the gurgling of water. Then there was such a furious hissing rush that they started back, and had just stepped clear of the basin when a fount of boiling water rushed up with terrific violence, maintaining the shape of the tube through which it had risen to the height of a hundred feet in the air, and keeping to that height for a minute or two, looking like a solid pillar of water. Then the force which had ejected it seemed to be spent, and the huge fountain descended slowly lower and lower, with several other elevations, and finally descended below the surface with a hideous rushing turmoil, and was gone.

They were about to advance and look down again, but there was a roar, and the water rushed to the surface just high enough to fill the basin, and for a portion to run gurgling over where the rim, which seemed to be formed of a curious deposit, was broken away, and trickle down toward the valley.

"I say, aren't it hot?" said Billy Widgeon, who had thrust in his hands before the water ran back. "Why, you might cook in it. I say, bo'sun, look ye here; why if it aren't just like the stuff as my old mother used to scrape out of the tea-kettle at home."

Small stooped and broke off a scrap of the deposit, and examined it, holding it out afterwards to Mark.

"Yes," said the major, who examined it in turn, after Mark had taken it to him, "the man is quite right. It is a limy deposit from the boiling water, similar to what is found in kettles and boilers. Shows that the water is very hard, eh, captain?"

"Yes, I suppose that's it," replied Captain Strong. "But all this is very interesting for travellers, and does not concern us. We've come to find out our noisy friend, so let's get on. Some day, when we've nothing to do, we may come here on a pleasure trip. To-day we must work."

"Stop a few minutes longer, father," said Mark, as the men went to another of the geysers a little lower down, one which had just thrown a column of water up some forty feet, and then subsided—a column not a third of the size of that which they had just seen.

"Very well," said the captain. "Want to see it spout again?"

"I should like to, once," said Mark; and then, moved by that energetic spirit which is always inciting boys to do something, he ran to the other side of the basin, where a good-sized piece of rock lay half incrusted with the stony deposit of the hot spring. It weighed about three-quarters of a hundredweight, but of so rounded a shape that it could be easily moved, and Mark rolled it over and over into the basin of the geyser while his father was pointing out something to the major across the little valley, and just as the stone was close to the rock-like opening the captain turned.

"I wouldn't do that, Mark," he said, as he realised his son's intention; but his warning came too late, for the final impetus had been given, and the stone disappeared in the hole.

Mark looked up apologetically as his father and the major came closer, and were listening to hear what would be the result, and expecting to note a tremendous hollow-sounding splash from far below.

What seemed to be a long time elapsed before there was any sign, and then with a roar up came the volley of water again so instantaneously that they had only just time to flee to the other side of the basin to avoid a drenching, possibly a scalding, while to the surprise of all there was a dull thud. The water descended with its furious hissing and gurgling, rose again to the top, and then, judging from the sounds, came up less and less distances in its vast stony pipe, and then all was silent once more, and they were gazing at the piece of rock Mark had thrown down, now lying in the basin about three feet from the well-like central hole.

"That's the way to make it spurt," said the major, laughing. "The hot water-works don't approve of stones, Master Mark."

The men were delighted with the hot springs, and after the fashion of sailors were pretty ready at giving them names according to their peculiarities. One was "The Grumbler;" another "The Bear-pit." A whistling hissing spring became "The Squealer." One that gurgled horribly, "The Bubbly Jock;" whilst others were, "The Lion's Den," from the roaring sound; "The Trumpet Major;" and the noisiest of all, from which a curious clattering metallic sound came up, "The Bull in the China-shop."

All at once the investigating party were aroused by a tremendous burst of laughter, which came from behind a clump of bushes where the men had gathered to watch the action of one of the smaller geysers.

The captain led the way toward the spot, for the noise was very boisterous, and as they approached it was to see the men rush away in the height of enjoyment, laughing again, for the spout of hot water, which seemed less steamy and hot, played up again and descended, while as it ran back with a low bellowing roar, the men followed quickly, evidently to watch its descent down the stony tube, just as so many boys might at play.

But there was no play here, for the comedy of running away to avoid a wetting with the hot water, and rushing back to look down, turned into tragedy. Short-legged Billy Widgeon, in his eagerness to be first, tried to take long strides like leaps, and bounded with a hop, skip, and a jump right into the wet basin, when the men set up a wild cry as, to the horror of all, they saw the little sailor's feet glide from under him, his hands thrown up wildly to clutch at something to save himself, and then he seemed to glide down the narrow well-like hole and was gone.



CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE.

HOW THE SULPHUR CAVERN WAS FOUND.

For a few seconds every one stood still as if petrified by the horror of the scene. Then with a hoarse cry the captain dashed to the opening, slipped, and would also have gone down, had he not made a leap and thrown himself headlong across to the other side.

Mark stopped short, with a horrified expression on his face, for in those brief moments he suffered all the agony of having seen his father disappear, but almost before the captain had regained his legs the men uttered a warning shout, for there was the gurgling roaring below, a vibration in the earth, and the hot fountain played again to the height of twenty or thirty feet, descended almost as rapidly, and those on one side of the basin, as the water descended, saw the captain on the other side holding Billy Widgeon by the jacket, dragging him from the very edge of the hole to some half a dozen yards away.

The next minute all were gathered round where the little sailor lay apparently lifeless.

"Is he dead?" whispered Mark, catching at his father's arm.

"Not he," cried Small, stooping down and shaking the prostrate man. "Billy, old chap; here, wake up, I say! How goes it?"

Billy Widgeon opened his eyes, stared, choked, spat out some water, looked round, and shook his head to get rid of some more.

"Eh?" he said at last.

"How are you, my man?" said the captain.

Billy Widgeon stared at him, then looked all round, rubbed his eyes with his knuckles, stared again, rose, and trotted slowly to the basin, into which he stepped cautiously, and before he could be stopped peered down the hole.

He came away directly thereafter shaking his head.

"It's a rum un," he said, rubbing one ear, and slowly taking off and wringing his jacket to get rid of the water.

"You're not hurt, then?" said the captain, anxiously.

"Hurt, sir? No, I don't know as I'm hurt, sir, but I'm precious wet."

"How far did you go down?" cried Mark.

"How far did I go down?" said Billy, sulkily. "Miles!"

"Was it very hot, my man?" said the major.

"Hot! Well, if tumbling down a well like that there, and then being shot up again like a pellet out of a pop-gun aren't getting it hot, I should like to know what is?"

"I mean was the water very hot?" said the major, as the men, now that there was no danger, began to grin.

"'Bout as hot as I likes it, sir; just tidy," replied Billy.

"But what did it feel like?" said Mark; "I mean falling down there."

"Oh, there warn't no time to feel, Mr Mark, sir. I went down so quickly."

"Well, what did it seem like?" said Mark.

"Don't know, sir. I was in such a hurry," said Billy.

There was a laugh at this, in which Billy joined.

"You can't give us any description, then?" said the captain smiling.

"No, sir. I only found out one thing—I didn't seem to be wanted down there, being in the way, as you may say, and likely to stop the pipes. And now, Mr Small, sir, I'd take it kindly if you'd come in the wood there with me and lend a hand while I wring all the wet I can out o' my things, as'll make 'em dry more handy."

The boatswain nodded, and the pair went in among the trees, leaving the others discussing the narrow escapes and sending a stone or two down, and then a great dead dry stump of a tree-fern, all of which were shot up again, the stones after an interval, the fern stump, which was as long as Billy Widgeon and thicker round, coming up again directly.

"Why, major," said the captain at last, "if you had told me all this some day after dinner back in England, I'm afraid I shouldn't have believed you."

"I'm sure I should not have believed you," said the major laughing. "It sounds like a sea-serpent story, and I don't think I shall ever venture to tell it unless I can produce the man."

At that moment Billy came back out of the jungle, looking very ill-tempered, and his first act as the fount played again, was to go close to the edge of the basin and try the temperature of the water.

"Just tidy," he said, as they descended from the level shelf where the geysers were clustered, and along by the little gurgling rocky stream which carried off their overflowings before reaching the slope of the mountain, and beginning to climb with fresh and unexpected wonders on every hand.

It was nervous work, for as they climbed the earth trembled beneath their feet; low, muttering, thunderous sounds could be heard, while here and there from crevices puffs of sulphurous, throat-stinging vapour escaped.

Then a bubbling hot spring was reached, not a geyser like those on the shelf across the long valley, but a little gurgling fount of the most beautifully pure water, but so heated that it was impossible to thrust a hand therein.

"Are we going much higher, Mr Mark?" said Billy Widgeon at last. "Feels to me as if we should go through before we knowed where we was."

"Going to the top, I suppose," said Mark, smiling at the man's face, though he could not help feeling some slight trepidation as strange volcanic suggestions of what was beneath them in the mountain kept manifesting themselves at every step.

"Oh, all right!" said Billy in a tone of resignation; "but I do purtest, if I am to die, agin being biled."

The climb up the mountain side was continued for some time, fresh wonders being disclosed at every step. The jungle grew less thick, with the result that flowers were more plentiful, and if not more abundant the birds and gloriously-painted insects were easier to see. Hot springs were plentiful, and formed basins surrounded by the deposit from the water, a petrifaction of the most delicate tints, while the water was of the most exquisite blue.

A little higher, and in a narrow ravine among the rocks a perfect chasm, into which they descended till the sides almost shut out the light of day, so closely did they approach above their heads, Mark, who was in advance, made a find of a deposit of a delicate greenish yellow.

"Why, here's sulphur!" he exclaimed, picking up a beautifully crystallised lump, while the rock above was incrusted with angular pieces of extreme beauty.

"Yes, sulphur," said the captain; "and I don't think we'll go any farther here. It may be risky."

"I'll just see how soon this cleft ends," said the major, approaching what seemed to be the termination of the gorge—quite a jagged rift, cut or split in the side of the mountain.

The major went on cautiously, for, as he proceeded, it grew darker, the rift rapidly becoming a cavern.

"It runs right into the mountain!" he cried, and his voice echoed strangely. "Here, Mark, my lad, if you want to see some specimens of sulphur, there are some worth picking here."

There was something so weirdly attractive in the cavern that Mark followed, and in setting his feet down cautiously on the rocky floor his eyes soon became accustomed to the gloom, and he found that the rock joined about a dozen feet above their head, and was glittering as if composed of pale golden crystals of the most wonderful form.

Before him, at the distance of a dozen feet, he could dimly make out the figure of the major, while behind stood the group formed by their companions, looking like so many silhouettes in black against the pale light sent down the chasm from above.

"Mind what you're doing," said the captain. "Don't go in too far."

"All right!" cried the major; "there's good bottom. It's a lovely sulphur cave. Coming in?"

"No," said the captain, sitting down; "I'll wait for you. Make haste, and then we'll go back another way."

"Can you see the sides, Mark?" said the major.

"Yes, sir. Lovely!" replied the lad. "I should like to take a basketful. I'll break a piece or two off."

"Wait a bit," said the major; "there is a lovely piece here. What's that?"

Mark listened, as he stood close to the major, where the cavern went right in like a narrow triangle with curved sides.

A low hissing noise saluted their ears, apparently coming from a great distance off.

"Snakes!" whispered Mark.

"Steam!" said the major. "Why, Mark, this passage must lead right into the centre of the mountain. There, listen again! You can hear a dull rumbling sound."

"Yes, I can hear it," said Mark in an awe-stricken whisper.

"I dare say if we went on we should see some strange sights."

"Without lights?" said the captain, who had approached them silently.

"Perhaps we should get subterranean fire to show us the interior of the mountain. What do you say?—shall we explore a little further? One does not get a chance like this every day."

"I'm willing to come another time with lights, but it would be madness to go on in the dark. How do you know how soon you might step into some terrible chasm?"

"Without the slightest chance of being shot out again, like Billy Widgeon!" said the major. "You are quite right; it would be a terribly risky proceeding."

They listened, and this time there came a low boom and a roar as if there had been an explosion somewhere in the mountain, and the roar was the reverberation of the noise as it ran through endless passages and rocky ways echoing out to the light of day.

"No, it does not sound tempting," said the major. "I don't want to go far. But I must get a specimen or two of this sulphur for the ladies to see."

He walked on cautiously.

"Mind!" said the captain.

"Oh, yes, I'll take care," came back out of the darkness. "I can see my way yet, and the sulphur is wonderful. These will do."

A tapping noise followed from about fifty feet away; then the fall of a piece or two of stone, followed by a low hissing sound.

"Hear the steam escaping, Mark?" said the captain. "Ah, that's a good bit, as far as I can see. Come, major."

There was no answer.

"O'Halloran!" cried the captain, and his voice went echoing away into the distance, the name being partly repeated far in, as if whispered, mockingly by some strange denizen of the cavern.

"Major O'Halloran!" shouted Mark excitedly. "What's that?"

"What, my lad?" cried the captain.

"That curious choking sour smell. Ah!"

"Back, boy, for your life!" cried the captain, snatching at his son's arm and half dragging him towards where the cave was open to the sky. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, yes, father," panted Mark, who was coughing violently. "Is—is— Oh, father! the major."

The captain had taken a handkerchief from his pocket and loosely doubled it, and this he tied over his mouth and nostrils.

"Hold my gun, Mark," he whispered; and then hoarsely, as if to himself, "I can't leave him like that, come what may."

He paused for a moment to breathe hard and thoroughly inflate his lungs, and then, regardless of the risk of falling, he ran rapidly in, while Mark stood horror-stricken listening to his retiring footsteps.

His next act saved the lives of the two men.

"Small!—Widgeon!" he cried. "Here, quick!"

The two men ran to his side, ready to help.

"My father has gone in to help the major. As soon—as he comes—near enough—go and help."

The men stood listening; and then, as they heard the coming steps, made a dart in, but returned.

"You can't breathe. It chokes you," cried Billy Widgeon.

"Take a long mouthful, my lad, and hold your breath," growled the boatswain. "Ha, he's down! Come on!"



CHAPTER THIRTY SIX.

HOW MARK AND BILLY WIDGEON WENT WRONG.

Mark did as the others did; inflated his lungs and rushed into the darkness, till they nearly fell over the captain; and then how it was done the lad hardly knew, but the two insensible men were dragged out to where there was pure air to breathe, and the rescuers sank down beside them, panting and exhausted. "Too late!" groaned Mark.

"Not we, my lad," growled Small. "I know. It's bad gas."

"It's the sulphur," cried Mark piteously.

"Well, aren't that bad gas? I know. They're just the same as if they was drowned, and we've got to pump their chesties full of wind till they begins to breathe as they ought to."

Small's ideas were doubtless quite correct, and fortunately but little effort was needed to bring the sufferers to their senses, for the fresh air soon recovered them, and they sat up looking wild and confused.

With the help of an arm to each they were soon able to walk back to the open mountain side, and after a rest declared themselves ready to proceed.

"I think we'll go back away north of the hot springs," the captain said.

"Certainly," exclaimed the major with quite a sound of contrition in his voice.

"The jungle is dense, but I think with a little managing we can find our way."

"Well, yes, perhaps so," said the major. "It's down hill, and half our way will be fairly open."

"If it proves too dense we can but turn to the right and go back as we came," said the captain. "There, Mark, you need not look so anxious. There is nothing worse the matter than a bad headache. How are you, major?"

"Horrible!" he said. "I have a bad headache, and a bad mental pain, for being so absurdly obstinate and running all that risk for the sake of a few crystals of sulphur."

"Which, after all, you had to leave behind."

"Not all," said the major; "I had put a couple of lumps in my pocket when that overpowering vapour struck me down. My impression is—yes, of course, I remember clearly now—that where I broke the crystals away I must have opened a hole for the escape of the vapour."

"I heard the hissing noise," said Mark eagerly.

"Strong," said the major, "I know you will forgive me; but, believe me, it will be a long time before I forgive myself. I can't say much to you about thanks," he whispered in a hoarse voice; "but I shall never forget this."

"Nonsense, man, nonsense!" cried the captain warmly. "You would have done the same for me."

No more was said, for there was plenty to do to keep together, and the various sights and sounds as they bore away to the east of the hot springs set the whole party well upon the qui vive.

For on every side there were traces of volcanic action. Now they had to climb over or round some mass of lava that looked comparatively new as seen beside fragments that were moss-grown and fringed with orchids and ferns. In one place on the steep descent all would be one tangled growth of creepers, while a little farther on the ground would be sharply inclined and as bare and burned as if fire had lately issued from the earth. Every now and then they came, too, upon soft patches of mud firm enough to walk over and like india-rubber beneath their feet; but it was nervous work, and they crossed with care, feeling, as they did, a curious vibration going on beneath their feet.

Then came an exceedingly rugged descent of quite a precipitous nature, but lovely in the extreme, so clothed was it with tropic verdure, though this was more beautiful to the eye than to the feet, for it often concealed treacherous crevices between blocks of scoria, and ugly cracks and rifts, some of which were dangerous, while others were awful from their depth and the low, hissing, murmuring sounds which came from their inmost recesses.

At last the descent became so precipitous that they were brought to a stand-still and all progress seemed to be at an end, till, searching about, Mark and Billy Widgeon came upon a broad gash in the mountain side at the bottom of which there seemed to be a long slope of the smooth, hard-surfaced mud apparently running downward toward the spot they sought.

The captain declared the descent practicable with care, and Mark took the lead, going down with plenty of agility, and closely followed by the little sailor.

At the end of a quarter of an hour they were all on the stony brink of what seemed to be a mud-stream which at some time had flowed down from out of a huge yawning chasm high up above their heads, and perfectly inaccessible from where they stood. According to all appearances, this mud in a thin state must have come down in a perfect cataract till it filled up the space beneath the chasm, which resembled a huge basin, as level as so much water, and when this had become full the stream had begun to form, and down this mud-stream they proposed to go, though how far it extended and would help them on their way experience alone could show.

They stood just at the edge of the pool to find that a walk upon its surface would be dangerous in the extreme, for though the top was elastic a stick was easily driven through, with the result that a jet of steam rushed out with a noise like that of a railway whistle, but the surface of the stream on being tested proved firmer, and they began to descend.

Again the same sense of insecurity was felt, the india-rubber-like film giving way easily and springing up again, while the old muttering and murmuring noises thrilled beneath their feet.

But so long as it would hold it proved to be a capital road, for while there was a wall of dense verdure on either side, not so much as a scrap of moss had taken root on the surface of the smooth slope, which wound in and out with the ravine, acting in fact as a stream of water does which runs down some mountain scar, save that here there was no progress. The mud had once been hot and fluid, and doubtless was still so, to some extent, below; but, after filling up every inequality, it kept to one regular level, forming what Mark at once dubbed Gutta-percha Lane.

It was now long past mid-day, and as they walked steadily on, growing more confident as the toughness of the bituminous mud, for such it proved to be, proved itself worthy of the trust it was called upon to bear, the question arose where the stream would end.

As far as the captain could make out, in spite of its zigzagging and abrupt curves, the course of the stream was decidedly towards the camp, but as they descended lower one thing was very plain, and that was that they were getting into thicker jungle, which grew taller and darker with every hundred feet of descent.

"How do you account for it?" Captain Strong said at last to the major, as they now found themselves walking down a winding road some fifteen to twenty feet wide, and with dense walls of verdure rising fully two hundred feet in height.

"I think there must have been a stream here, and at some time there has been an eruption and the mud has flowed down it and filled it up."

"If there had been a stream," the captain said, "we should have seen some sign of its outlet near the camp."

"Then you have a theory of your own?"

"Yes," said the captain; "it seems to me that first of all this was merely a jagged ravine, running from the mountain's shoulder right down to the sea."

"That's what I thought. With a stream at the bottom."

"No stream," said the captain. "Nothing but vegetation. Down this a stream of red-hot lava must have flowed and burned the vegetation clean away, leaving a place for the mud to come down and harden as you have it now. It may have been a year after the eruption—twenty, fifty, or a hundred years, but there it is."

"If you are right, we should see traces of the burning on the trees," said the major.

"That does not follow. These trees may have sprung up since, right to the very edge of the stream, but no farther."

"Then under this mud or bitumen there ought to be lava according to your ideas. How shall we prove it?"

"If I am right," said the captain, "we shall find that this stream ends all at once, just as the lava hardened when the flow ceased, for there was no stream of volcanic matter right down to the shore."

"And there is no stream of mud any further," said Mark laughing; "for there's the end."

Mark was quite right, for about a couple of hundred yards below them the mighty walls of verdure suddenly came together and blocked out further progress, while, when they reached the spot, it was to find that the bituminous mud spread out here into a pool, further progress being, as it were, stopped by a dam of blackish rock which resembled so much solidified sponge, so full was it of air-holes and bubble-like cells.

"I am no geologist," said the major, "so I give in to you, Strong. You must be right."

"I think I am," said the captain, quietly examining the rocky dam and the surface of the mud. "Yes, I should say that here is the explanation of this curious stream."

"Then all I can say is," said the major wiping his forehead, "that I wish the eruption had been a little bigger, and the lava stream had ended on the sands exactly one hundred yards from camp."

"And the mud had flowed over it and made our road?" said Mark laughing.

"That goes without saying," cried the major. "Now, then, I propose a halt and food."

There was plenty of shade close at hand, but unfortunately no water. Still, a good rest and a hearty meal proved most grateful, and as soon as it was done the major lit a cigar, the captain, Small, and two of the men seemed to be dozing, and Mark and Billy Widgeon looked at them and then at each other.

"Going to do a bit o' hammock work, Mr Mark, sir?" said Billy.

"I'm not sleepy."

"More am I, sir. Let's see if we can't get some fruit."

"All right!" cried Mark, jumping up.

"Don't go far, my boy," said the captain; and Mark started, for he had thought his father was asleep, while on looking at him he still lay back in the same position with his eyes closed.

"No, father, I won't go far," he said.

"Keep within range of a shout—well within range, for it's very easy to get lost in one of these jungles, and we shall be too tired to hunt for you now."

"I won't go far," said Mark; and he and Billy Widgeon began to walk slowly back along the stream, looking to left and right for a way between the trees into the jungle.

"You thought the skipper was asleep?" said Billy in a whisper. "Never ketches him asleep, as we all knows. It's always t'other. So soon as one o' us as ought to be awake goes off, he finds us out, and no mistake."

Mark did not answer, and Billy went on:

"It's my belief that when the skipper shuts his eyes he sets his ears to work to see and hear too. Ah, here we are! Here's a place where we can go in. I say, Mr Mark, did you eat any o' that cold treacle pooden?"

"No? Bill, I did not."

"Good job, too, sir. It was cooked in one o' they hot springs, and I'm blest if it didn't taste like brimstone and treacle. Lor', how thirsty I am! Wish I could find one o' them wooden-box fruit."

"What? cocoa-nuts?"

"No, sir: durings. They are good after all. Give's your hand, my lad." He bent down from a mass of basalt, which seemed to be the end of a rugged wall which penetrated the trees, and along which it was possible to climb more easily than to force a way through the dense growth which wove the trees together.

"I can manage, Billy," said Mark. "Go on."

Billy turned, and, apparently as active as if he had just started, he climbed on, parting the bushes that grew out of the interstices and holding them aside for Mark to clear them, and then on and on, without the sign of a fruit-tree or berry-bearing bush. The sun beat down through the overshadowing boughs, but the two had risen so high that the forest monarchs had become as it were dwarfed, and it was evident that they would soon be above them and able to look down on their tops.

"Why, Billy," exclaimed Mark, "if we go on, we shall soon be able to see the sea, and the best way down to the camp."

"Sure we shall, Mr Mark, sir," said the little sailor, descending a sudden slope and helping Mark to follow, after which they wound in and out for about a quarter of an hour, thoroughly eager in their quest for a way to simplify the descent of the rest of the party.

All at once the captain's final words came to memory, and Mark exclaimed:

"Here; we mustn't go any farther, Billy. We'll turn back now."

"All right! Mr Mark, sir, we'll soon do that; and then we can all come on this way together. We can show 'em now, eh?"

"Yes," said Mark; "but let's see, which way did we come? Along there, wasn't it?"

"'Long there, Mr Mark, sir? No, not it. Why, we come this way, down by these rocks."

"No, that couldn't be right, Billy, because the sun was on our left when we turned round, and you helped me down that rock."

"Was it, sir? Then it must be down here."

Billy led the way and Mark followed; but at the end of a few minutes he called a halt.

"No, no; this can't be right," he cried, as he gazed about a wilderness of huge rocks and trees, where bushes sprang up on every hand.

"Well, do you know, Mr Mark, sir, that's just what I was a-thinking," said Billy. "I've been a-puzzling my head over that there block o' stone as is standing atop o' that tother one, and couldn't recollect seeing of 'em afore."

"No; it must be this way," said Mark uneasily. "How stupid, to be sure! We must find our way back."

"Why, of course, Mr Mark, sir; and we will; but it aren't us as is stupid, it's these here rocks and trees as is all alike, just as if they was brothers and sisters, or peas in a pod."

"Don't talk so," said Mark angrily, as he realised more fully their position; and a sense of confusion made him petulant. "Let's act and find our way. Now, then, which way does the mud-stream lie?"

Billy scratched his head, stared about, and then said softly:

"Well, sir, I'll be blest if I know."

And Mark thoroughly realised the fact that they were lost.



CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN.

HOW MARK SOUGHT THE CLUE.

Were you ever lost? Most probably not; and hence you will hardly be able to realise the strange sensation of loneliness, helplessness, and despair which comes over the spirit as the traveller finds that he missed his way and is probably beyond the reach of help in some wilderness, where he knows that he may go on tramping wearily until he lies down and dies.

Mark Strong's case was not so bad, but he felt it painfully for many reasons. Among others there was the knowledge that he had utterly forgotten the injunction given to him to take care and not go too far; while another was the dread that though they had been nominally searching all day for the strange beast that had caused so much alarm, and seen nothing, now that he and his companion were helpless they might possibly stumble upon its cave.

"Oh, Billy, what have we been doing?" he cried impatiently.

"Well, Mr Mark, sir, I don't know as we've been doing o' hanything pertickler."

"But we've lost our way."

"Well, yes, sir, I s'pose we've lost that there; but it don't much matter—do it?"

"Matter!—of course!" cried Mark angrily; and, as if born by nature to lead, he at once took the command and gave his orders. "Now, you climb to the top of that rock and see if you can make out the course we ought to take; and I'll climb that one yonder."

"All right, Mr Mark, sir!" cried the little sailor, starting off.

"And mind, we come back to this spot directly."

"Right, sir! we will."

"Then, off!"

Mark slowly and painfully scaled the side of a steep sloped ravine, and when he reached the top, with the perspiration running down his cheeks, he looked round, to see trees, rocks, and the beautiful cone of the volcano.

That was something; and he reasoned that if he turned his back to the mountain and walked straight down and onward, though he would not be able to join his party he would reach the shore.

But no sooner had he arrived at this comforting assurance that he would have nothing to fear from starvation than all his hopes were dashed to the ground, as he realised the fact that, as soon as he descended from the giddy height at which he stood, he would lose sight of the mountain and have no guide; while to go straight on among the mighty moss-covered rocks, which were pitched helter-skelter all over the place, was as impossible as to go through the jungle without a gang of men with bill-hooks to hack a way among the dense undergrowth.

Right, left, and before him he could see nothing that would suggest his having passed along there; and with his heart sinking he slowly climbed down part of the way, then reached a mossy stone which gave way beneath his feet and fell, while he followed, slipping down twenty feet, rolling another twenty; dropping sometimes into a thorny tangle of brambles, and dragging himself out, tattered, bleeding, and terribly out of temper, to walk slowly back to the spot from whence he and Billy Widgeon had started.

"How thirsty I am!" he said to himself; and then he listened.

All was horribly silent, and he called in a startled way, to be answered by a faint "Ahoy!"

"This way, Billy!"

There was again silence as Mark threw himself wearily on a mass of ferns; but after a time the rustling of boughs and breaking of twigs could be heard, and at last from apparently a long way off came Billy's voice again:

"Mr Mark, ahoy!"

"Ahoy! This way!"

Another pause, with the rustling of leaves and twigs continued, and Billy's voice again:

"Ahoy, my lad! Where are you?"

"Here!"

There was a low muttering as if Billy were talking to himself, and then another shout.

"Here!" cried Mark again wearily.

"Oh, there you are—are you?" cried the little sailor, struggling at last to his side. "I thought I was never going to get back. More you tries to find your way, more you loses it. I never see such a mess in my life! Why don't they keep a gardener?"

Wretched as he was, hot, weary, and smarting and stinging from scratches and pricks, Mark could not help laughing at the little sailor's irritable manner.

"Ah, you may laugh, my lad, a-lying all so comfortable there! but if you'd had such a slip as I did off a rock, and came down sitting on a thorn as big as a marlin'-spike, you wouldn't show your white teeth like that!"

"But I did, Billy," cried Mark, going off into a wild roar of laughter; "and I'm horribly pricked and torn. But never mind that. Did you find the way back to them?"

"Find your way back to 'em?—no. I never see such a muddle as the place is in. Every bit's like every other bit; and when you mark down one tree, meaning to come back to it, and do come back to it, why it's another tree just like the one you thought it was. I say, Mr Mark, sir, this place aren't 'chanted—is it?"

"Enchanted!—no. Why?"

"I d'know, only it's very queer like and puzzling. I can't make it out a bit."

"Why, how do you mean?"

"Mean as you can't seem to box the compass like, and don't know which way to steer, sir. I feels as if I should give it up."

"Give it up! What nonsense! Let's rest a few minutes and start again."

"Oh, I don't mind resting, sir; but I don't want to have to sleep out here. Why, we've got nothing to eat, and no lights, and—no, I sha'n't sit down, Mr Mark, sir. I don't want to disobey orders, but seems to me as we'd better get back to what you called Gutta-percha Road."

"Now, look here, Billy, how can you be so stupid?" cried Mark pettishly. "You know I want to get back; but which way are we to go?"

"Tell you what, sir, let's cooey," cried Billy, giving his leg a slap. "That's the proper thing to do when you're out in the woods."

"Well, cooey, then," said Mark. "Go on."

"No, sir; you'd better do it," said Billy modestly. "I aren't practysed it much."

"Never mind; go on."

"I'd a deal rather you would, Mr Mark, sir."

"But I can't. I never did such a thing in my life."

"Well, if it comes to that, sir, more didn't I."

"And you said you hadn't practised much."

"Well, sir, I haven't," said Billy coolly.

"Billy, you're a sham," said Mark angrily.

"All right, sir! I don't mind."

"You get one into a muddle like this, and then are no use at all."

"No, sir. That's about it," said Billy coolly, and all the time as serious as a judge. "I wish we'd got Jack here!"

"What's the good of him?—to send up the trees after cocoa-nuts?"

"Now, now, now, Mr Mark, sir, don't be hard on a fellow! I did think as he'd send some down; and I believe now as he wouldn't because I give him a cuff o' the head that morning for sucking the end o' my hankychy."

"Here, come along, and let's keep together."

"All right, sir!"

"Let's get up to the top of that rock first. I think that's where we came down."

"Nay, nay, Mr Mark, sir. I'm sure as that wasn't the way. It was up that one."

"I'm certain it was not, Billy. It was this. Come along."

"All right, Mr Mark, sir! If you says that's right, it's quite enough for me. I'll go anywheres you likes to lead; and I can't say fairer than that—can I?"

"No, Billy," said Mark; "so come along."

He led the way, and they climbed by the help of the bushes and aerial roots of the trees right to the top of the rugged bank of rock he had marked down in his mind's eye as being the way; and as soon as they were there they stopped and listened.

"Perhaps they're looking for us," he said.

"Shouldn't wonder, Mr Mark, sir."

But though they listened there was no shout, no distant sound to suggest that a search was being made.

"You talk about Jack," said Mark; "I wish we had got poor old Bruff here! He would find the way home."

"But you see, Mr Mark, sir, it aren't no use to wish. Lawk a me! sir, the number o' things I've wished for in my life—'bacco, knives, a silver watch, silk hankychies, lots o' things, but I never got 'em."