Fire Island Part 34

"Serpents do swallow their food whole," said Oliver.

"Ah, that accounts for his not answering when I shouted. Of course, I couldn't hear him or him me if he was swallowed down into some long thing's inside."

"There, that will do," said Oliver, impatiently. "I say, Panton, are we going right?"

"Must be; the edge of the wood is below us on the right."

"But everything looks so different."

"Yes, looks dark," said Drew. "But we ought to be pretty close to the place now."

"I'm afraid we've turned up too much among the rocks. It will be horrible to be lost now. I wish we had not come," said Panton. "We ought to be resting ready for our work to-morrow."

"All right: we've pa.s.sed the opening into the forest," cried Oliver.

"How do you know?"

"Look back a little, and you'll see the gleam of the fire. There, look."

For, as they stopped and glanced back, there was a sudden blaze of light from some fifty yards below them, as if the fire had fallen together and flashed up.

"I thought we couldn't be far away," continued Oliver.

"Look, look, sir," whispered Wriggs, stopping short, and catching the young man's arm.

"What at? The fire? Yes, I see it."

"No, sir, close to it. There, it's a-moving. Tommy Smith's ghost."

"Ahoy, ghost!" shouted Oliver, as he caught sight of the figure.

"Ahoy it is, sir," came in stentorian tones. "Seen anything o' poor Billy Wriggs, sir? He's wanished."

"Mussy on me, Tommy," shouted Wriggs, running forward to grasp his comrade's hand, "I thought you was a dead 'un."

"Not so bad as that, messmet," said Smith shaking hands heartily, "but I had a nasty tumble down into a sort o' crack place, and it reg'lar stunned me for a bit, and when I come back you was gone."

"But did you hear 'em?" said Wriggs, in a husky whisper.

"Who's 'em?" said Smith.

"Sarpents."

"What, a-hissin' like mad?"

"Ay."

"'Tarn't serpents, Billy, it's some hot water holes clost by here, and every now and then they spits steam. Fust time I heerd it I thought it was a cat."

Half an hour later all were sleeping soundly, only one having his slumber disturbed by dreams, and that was Wriggs, who had turned over on his back, and in imagination saw himself surrounded by huge snakes, all in two pieces. They rose up and hissed at him while he struggled to get away, but seemed to be held down by something invisible; but the most horrible part of his dream was that some of the serpents hissed at him with their heads, and others stood up on the part where they had been divided, and hissed at him with the points of their tails.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

UP THE MOUNTAIN.

The sun was s.h.i.+ning upon the globular mist which floated high up over the top of the mountain when Panton woke and roused his companions, and while the men raked up the embers, added wood to get the kettle to boil, the three young companions walked to the spring for a bathe, by way of preparation for an arduous day's work. Here they found, deep down in a crack among the rocks, quite an extensive pool, into which the hot spring flowed, and a journey of thirty or forty yards among the rocks, exposed to the air, was sufficient to temper its heat into a pleasant warmth, whose effects were delicious, giving to the skin, as it did, consequent upon the salts it contained, a soft, silky feeling, which tempted them to stay in longer.

"It wouldn't do," said Panton, withdrawing himself from the seductive influence of the bath. "It would be enervating, I'm sure."

"Yes, let's dress," cried Oliver, and soon after they were making a hearty meal, gazing up at the great slope they had to surmount, and noting as they ate, the sinuous lines which appeared here and there upon the mountain-side, and which they knew, from experience, to be cracks.

"Must dodge all of them, if we can," said Panton with his mouth full.

"If not, Smith must lay the ladder across for a bridge."

"But, I say, Lane," said Drew, after gazing upward for some time in silence, "didn't you lay it on a bit too thick when we found you?"

"Yes," said Panton, "about the difficulty of the climb. Why, it looks nothing. Only a hot tiring walk. I say, we ought to be peeping down into the crater in an hour's time."

"Yes, we ought to be," said Oliver, drily. "Look sharp, my lads, eat all you can, and then let's start. The tent can stay as it is till we come back. We'll take nothing but some food and our bottles of water.

You carry the ladder, Wriggs, and you that long pole and the ropes, Smith."

"Ay, ay, sir," said the men in duet, and a quarter of an hour later Oliver, as having been pioneer, took the lead, and leaving the rugged rocky ground they planted their feet upon the slope and began to climb.

"Don't seem to get much nearer the top," said Drew at the end of two hours, when he had proposed that they should halt for a few minutes to admire the prospect, in which Panton at once began to take a great deal of interest.

"No, we haven't reached the top yet," said Oliver, drily.

"What a view!" cried Drew. "Oughtn't we soon to see the brig?"

"No," replied Oliver; "if we cannot see the mountain from the vessel, how can we expect to see the vessel from the mountain? Ready to go on?"

"Yes, directly," said Panton. "You can see the ocean, though, and the surf on the barrier reef. But I don't see any sign of savages."

"Phew! What's that?" cried Drew, suddenly.

"Puff of hot air from the mountain, or else from some crack. There must be one near."

Oliver looked round and upward, but no inequality was visible, and they climbed slowly and steadily up for some hundred yards before Panton, who was now first, stopped short.

"I say, look here!" he cried. "We're done, and must go back."

Oliver joined him, and then gazed away to the west.

"This is the great crack I told you about," he said, "but it is much narrower here."

"And not so deep, eh?" said Panton, with a slight sneer.