Mr. Fortescue Part 40

It was the most splendid sight I had ever seen and the most portentous--for I knew that the crater had become active, and remembering how long it had taken to fill I feared the worst.

The jet went on rising and falling for nearly an hour, but as the ma.s.s of the water returned to the crater, very little going over the sides, no great harm was done.

"Thank Heaven for the respite!" exclaimed Angela, who had been clinging to me all the time, trembling yet courageous. "Don't you think the danger is now past, my Nigel?"

"For us, it may be. But if the crater has really become active. I fear that our poor people at San Cristobal will be in very great danger indeed."

"No! G.o.d alone--Hearken!"

A m.u.f.fled peal of thunder which seemed to come from the very bowels of the earth, followed by a detonation like the discharge of an army's artillery, and the sides of the crater opened, and with a wild roar the pent-up torrent burst forth, and leaping into the lake, rolled, a mighty avalanche of water, toward the doomed oasis.

We looked at each other in speechless dismay. Nothing could resist that terrible flood; it would sweep everything before it, for, though its violence might be lessened before it reached the sea, only the few who happened to be near the coast could escape destruction.

n.o.body spoke; the roar of the cataract deafened us, the awfulness of the catastrophe made us dumb. We were as if stunned, and I was conscious of nothing save a sickening sense of helplessness and despair.

For an hour we stood watching the outpouring of the water. In that hour Quipai was destroyed and its people perished.

As the blood-red sun sank into the bosom of the broad Pacific, a great cloud of smoke and steam, mingled with stones and ashes, was puffed out of the crater and a stream of fiery lava, bursting from the breach in the side of the mountain, followed in the wake of the water.

The uproar was terrific; explosion succeeded explosion; great stones hurled through the air and fell back into the crater with a din like discharges of musketry, and whenever there came a lull we could hear the hissing of the water as it met the lava.

We remained in the garden the night through. n.o.body thought of going indoors; but after a while we became so weary with watching and overwrought with excitement that, despite the danger and the noise we could not keep our eyes open. Before the southern cross began to bend we were all asleep, Angela and I wrapped in our cobijas, the others on the turf and under the trees.

When I opened my eyes the sun was rising majestically above the Cordillera, but its rays had not yet reached the ocean. I rose and looked around. The crater was still smoking, and a mist hung over the oasis, but the lava had ceased to flow, and not a zephyr moved the air, not a tremor stirred the earth. Only the blackened throat of the volcano and the ghastly rent in its side were there to remind us of the havoc that had been wrought and the ruin of Quipai.

I roused the people and bade them prepare breakfast, for though thousands may perish in a night, the survivors must eat on the morrow. The house, albeit considerably shaken, was still intact, but several of the doors were so tightly jammed that I had to break them open with my hatchet.

When breakfast was ready I woke Angela.

"Is it real, or have I been dreaming?" she asked, with a shudder, looking wildly round.

"It is only too real," I said, pointing to the smoking crater.

"_Misericordia!_ what shall we do?"

"First of all, we must go down to the oasis and see whether any of the people are left alive."

"You are right. When we have done what we can for the others it will be time enough to think about ourselves."

"Are there any others?" I thought, for I greatly doubted whether we should find any alive, except, perhaps, Yawl and the three or four men who were helping him. But I kept my misgivings to myself, and after breakfast we set off. Angela and myself were mounted, and I a.s.signed a mule to Kidd.

The man might be useful, and, circ.u.mstanced as we were, it would have been bad policy to give him the cold shoulder. We also took with us provisions, clothing, and a tent, for I was by no means sure that we should find either food or shelter on the oasis.

As we pa.s.sed the volcano I looked into the crater. Nearly level with the breach made by the water was a great ma.s.s of seething lava, which I regarded as a sure sign that another eruption might take place at any moment. The valley lake had disappeared; banks, trees, soil, dwellings, all were gone, leaving only bare rocks and burning lava. Of San Cristobal there was not a vestige; the oasis had been converted into a damp and steaming gully, void of vegetation and animal life. But, as I had antic.i.p.ated, the force of the flood was spent before it reached the coast.

Much of the water had overflowed into the desert and been absorbed by the sand, and the little that remained was now sinking into the earth and being evaporated by the sun.

For hours Angela and I rode on in silence; our distress was too deep for words.

"Quipai is gone," she murmured at length, shuddering and looking at me with tear-filled eyes.

"Yes, gone and forever. As entirely as if it had never been. It is worse than the carnage of a great battle. These poor people! Nature is more cruel than man."

"But surely! will you not try to restore the oasis and re-create Quipai?"

"To do that, _cara mia_, would require another Abbe Balthazar and sixty years of life. And to what end? Sooner or later our work would be destroyed as his has been, even if we were allowed to begin it. The volcano may be active for ages. We must go."

"Whither?"

"Back to the world, that in new scenes and occupation we may perchance forget this crowning calamity."

"It is something to have been happy so long."

"It is much; it is almost everything. Whatever the future may have in store for us, darling, nothing can deprive us of the sunny memories of the past, and the happiness we have enjoyed at Quipai."

"True, and if this misfortune were not so terrible--But G.o.d knows best. It ill becomes me, who never knew sorrow before, to repine.--Yes, let us go.

But how?"

"By sea. I fear you would never survive the hazards and hards.h.i.+ps of a journey over the Cordillera, and dearly as I love you--because I love you--I would rather have you die than be captured by Indians and made the wife of some savage cacique. Yes, we must go by sea, in the sloop built by these two castaways. Yet, even in that there will be a serious risk; for if they suspect I have the diamonds in my possession--and I am afraid the suspicion is inevitable--they will probably--"

"What?"

"Try to murder us."

"Murder us! For the diamonds?"

"Yes, my Angela, for the diamonds. In the world which you have never seen men commit horrible crimes for insignificant gains, and I have here in my pocket the value of a king's ransom. Even the average man could hardly withstand so great a temptation, and all we know of these sailors is that one of them is a thief."

"What will you do then?"

"First of all, I must find a safer hiding-place for our wealth than my pockets; and we must be ever on our guard. The voyage will not be long, and we shall be three against two."

"Three! You will take Ramon, then?"

"Certainly--if he will go with us."

"Of course he will. Ramon would follow you to the world's end. And the other sailor--Yawl--may have been drowned in the flood."

"I don't think so. The flood did not go much farther than this, and Yawl was busy with his boat. But we shall soon know; the cliffs are in sight."

CHAPTER x.x.xI.

NORTH BY WEST.

Besides Yawl and his helpers, we found on the beach about thirty men and women, the saved of two thousand. Among them was one of the priests ordained by the abbe. All had lived in the lower part of the oasis, and when the volcano began spouting water, after the third earthquake, they fled to the coast and so escaped. Though naturally much distressed (being bereft of home, kindred, and all they possessed), they bore their misfortunes with the uncomplaining stoicism so characteristic of their race.