Part 10 (1/2)

Hotter it grew, and hotter yet, till at last we could scarcely breathe, and the perspiration poured out of us Half an hour h ere all now stark naked, we could hardly bear it The place was like an antechaions proper I dipped my hand into the water and drew it out al We consulted a little therrees

From the surface of the water rose a dense cloud of steaatory, which indeed ere, though not in the sense that henear the seat of soround volcanic fire, and I aht of what subsequently occurred, that he was right Our sufferings for some time after this really pass er perspired, for all the perspiration had been sweated out of us We simply lay in the bottom of the boat, which ere now physically incapable of directing, feeling like hot e very much the sa on land--naan to crack, and the blood to throb in our heads like the beating of a stea on for some time, when suddenly the river turned a little, and I heard Sir Henry call out fro up, saw a

About half a mile ahead of us, and a little to the left of the centre of the streae pillar-like jet of al fifty feet into the air, when it struck the roof and spread out so back in curved sheets of fire shaped like the petals of a full-blown rose Indeed this awful gas jet rese out of the black water Beloas the straight stalk, a foot or more thick, and above the dreadful bloom And as for the fearfulness of it and its fierce and awesome beauty, who can describe it? Certainly I cannot

Although ere now so the steam, lit up the whole cavern as clear as day, and we could see that the roof was here about forty feet above us, and washed perfectly smooth ater The rock was black, and here and there I could h it like great veins, but of what metal they were I know not

On we rushed towards this pillar of fire, which gleamed fiercer than any furnace ever lit by ht,' shouted Sir Henry, and a minute afterwards I saw hione Good was the next to go There they lay as though dead; only Uaas and I kept our senses We ithin fifty yards of it now, and I saw the Zulu's head fall forward on his hands He had gone too, and I was alone I could not breathe; the fierce heat dried reat rose of fire the rock-roof was red-hot The wood of the boat was alin to twist and shrivel up; but I would not give in I knew that if I did we should pass within three or four yards of the gas jet and perish miserably I set the paddle so as to turn the canoe as far frori froh ht We were nearly opposite now; it roared like all the fires of hell, and the water boiled furiously around it Five seconds more We were past; I heard the roar behindthat I recollect is feeling a breath of air upon reat difficulty I looked up Far, far above loom Then I remembered and looked The canoe still floated down the river, and in the bottom of it lay the naked forms of my companions

'Were they dead?' I wondered 'Was I left alone in this awful place?'

I knew not Next I becae of the boat into the water and drew it up again with a cry No wonder: nearly all the skin was burnt off the back of it The water, however, was cold, or nearly so, and I drank pints and splashed myself all over My body seemed to suck up the fluid as one ht; but where I was burnt the touch of it caused intense pain Then I bethoughtmyself towards them with difficulty, I sprinkled theaas first, then the others Next they drank, absorbing water like sochilly--a queer contrast to our recent sensations--we began as best we could to get into our clothes As we did so Good pointed to the port side of the canoe: it was all blistered with heat, and in places actually charred Had it been built like our civilized boats, Good said that the planks would certainly have warped and let in enough water to sink us; but fortunately it was dug out of the soft, ood of a single great tree, and had sides nearly three inches and a bottom four inches thick What that awful flame e never discovered, but I suppose that there was at this spot a crack or hole in the bed of the river through which a vast voluas forced its way from its volcanic home in the bowels of the earth towards the upper air How it first becanited is, of course, impossible to say--probably, I should think, froases

As soon as we had got soether a little, we set to work to ht above, and on examination we found that it came from the sky Our river that was, Sir Henry said, a literal realization of the wild vision of the poet {Endnote 10}, was no longer underground, but was running on its darksoh 'caverns htful cliffs which cannot have been less than two thousand feet high So high were they, indeed, that though the sky was above us, where as dense glooloom of a room closely shuttered in the daytiri to ht The little space of sky that marked where they ended lay like a thread of blue upon their soaring blackness, which was unrelieved by any tree or creeper Here and there, however, grew ghostly patches of a long grey lichen, hanging motionless to the rock as the white beard to the chin of a dead s or heavier part of the light had sunk to the bottoed sunbeam could fall so low: they died far, far above our heads

By the river's edge was a little shore forments of rock washed into this shape by the constant action of water, and giving the place the appearance of being streith thousands of fossil cannon balls Evidently when the water of the underground river is high there is no beach at all, or very little, between the border of the stream and the precipitous cliffs; but now there was a space of seven or eight yards And here, on this beach, we determined to land, in order to rest ourselves a little after all that we had gone through and to stretch our liive an hour's respite fro and arranging the canoe Accordingly we selected what looked like a favourable spot, and with soed to beach the canoe and scramble out on to the round, inhospitable pebbles

'My word,' called out Good, as on shore the first, 'what an awful place! It's enough to give one a fit' And he laughed

Instantly a thundering voice took up his words,them a hundred times '_Give one a fit--Ho! ho! ho!'--'A fit, Ho! ho! ho!_'

answered another voice in wild accents from far up the cliff--_a fit! a fit! a fit!_ chi the words to and fro with shouts of awful laughter to the invisible lips of the other till the whole place echoed with the words and with shrieks of fiendish un

'Oh, mon Dieu!' yelled Alphonse, startled quite out of such self-command as he possessed

'_Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu!_' the titanic echoes thundered, shrieked, and wailed in every conceivable tone

'Ah,' said Uaas calmly, 'I clearly perceive that devils live here Well, the place looks like it'

I tried to explain to him that the cause of all the hubbub was a very re echo, but he would not believe it

'Ah,' he said, 'I know an echo when I hear one There was one lived opposite my kraal in Zululand, and the Intombis [rown echo, mine at home can only have been a baby No, no--they are devils up there But I don't thinka pinch of snuff 'They can copy what one says, but they don't seem to be able to talk on their own account, and they dare not show their faces,' and he relapsed into silence, and apparently paid no further attention to such contemptible fiends

After this we found it necessary to keep our conversation down to a whisper--for it was really unbearable to have every word one uttered tossed to and fro like a tennis-ball, as precipice called to precipice

But even our whispers ran up the rocks in -drawn sighs of sound Echoes are delightful and roh of theulf

As soon as we had settled ourselves a little on the round stones, ent on to wash and dress our burns as well as we could As we had but a little oil for the lantern, we could not spare any for this purpose, so we skinned one of the swans, and used the fat off its breast, which proved an excellent substitute Then we repacked the canoe, and finally began to take some food, of which I need scarcely say ere in need, for our insensibility had endured for many hours, and it was, as our watches showed, ly we seated ourselves in a circle, and were soon engaged in discussing our cold meat with such appetite as we could muster, which, in my case at any rate, was not s of the previous night, and had besides a racking headache It was a curious loom was so intense that we could scarcely see the way to cut our food and convey it to our ot on pretty well, till I happened to look behindcrawling over the stones, and perceived sitting upon a rock in e species of black freshwater crab, only it was five times the size of any crab I ever saw This hideous and loathsolare at one, very long and flexible antennae or feelers, and gigantic claws Nor was I especially favoured with its company Fro up, drawn, I suppose, by the smell of the food, from between the round stones and out of holes in the precipice Some were already quite close to us I stared quite fascinated by the unusual sight, and as I did so I saw one of the beasts stretch out its huge claw and give the unsuspecting Good such a nip behind that he ju' in sober earnest Just then, too, another, a very large one, got hold of Alphonse's leg, and declined to part with it, and, as aas took his axe and cracked the shell of one with the flat of it, whereon it set up a horrid screaan to foa that drew hundreds more of its friends out of unsuspected holes and corners

Those on the spot perceiving that the animal was hurt fell upon it like creditors on a bankrupt, and literally rent it li their claws to convey the frag whatever weapons were handy, such as stones or paddles, we co by leaps and bounds, and whose stench was overpowering

So fast as we cracked their ar at theas they did so Nor did the brutes stop at that When they could they nipped hold of us--and awful nips they were--or tried to steal the ot hold of the se had skinned and began to drag it off Instantly a score of others flung the scene How the monsters foamed and screa and unnatural sight, and one that will haunt all who saw it till their dying day--enacted as it was in the deep, oppressive gloo e as it ly huh all the ot into the shell of a eous and intelligent, and they looked as if they _understood_ The whole scene ht have furnished material for another canto of Dante's 'Inferno', as Curtis said

'I say, you fellows, let's get out of this or we shall all go off our heads,' sung out Good; and ere not slow to take the hint Pushi+ng the canoe, around which the ani vain atteot out intoround

'Those are the devils of the place,' said Uaas with the air of one who has solved a probleree with hiaas' remarks were like his axe--very much to the point