dous
height, as if shot out by an internal explosion.

His first feeling was, that he must turn and rush down: his second, that
it would be madness to stir, for the side of the mountain was opening
and shutting in a network of fissures, and the next minute, the cloud
which he had seen blasted upwards proved itself not to be so much mist,
but a storm of ashes and scoria mingled with huge masses of rock, which
now curled over like a fountain, and were falling back in all
directions.

Oliver Lane tried to anchor himself to the shifting ashes as he lay
there, feeling that his last hour had come, for darkness was now added
to the other horrors, and the mountain-side was in strange quivering
motion, gaze wildly whichever way he would.

The fall of a mass of glowing cinders, so close that he could feel the
scorching heat against his cheek, roused Oliver Lane to the fact that it
was more dangerous to stay than to rush down-hill, running the gauntlet
of the falling shower; and, after a moment's hesitation, he turned and
ran for his life. The white-hot stones and cinders fell around him as
he bounded down, having hard work to keep his footing, for at every leap
the loose scoria gave way as he alighted, and slipped with him in an
avalanche of dust and ashes from which he had to extricate himself.

Once he had pretty well dragged himself out when the ashes for far
enough round began to glide downward, the thick haze of volcanic dust
around adding to his confusion, while every step he took in his frantic
efforts to keep on the surface resulted in his sinking more deeply till
he was above his waist in the loose gliding stuff and awake to the fact
that it was scorchingly hot.

But all at once, as despair was beginning to enfold him in a tighter
hold than the ash and cinder, the gliding avalanche suddenly stopped,
and as it was not like the Alpine snow ready to adhere and be compressed
into ice, he was able to extricate himself and slide and roll down for
some distance further.

Then all at once he found that he was in the sunshine again, and that
the stones had ceased to fall and the mountain to quiver; while, as he
gazed upward, it was to see that the dark cloud was slowly floating
away, giving him a view of the edge of the crater where it was broken
down for some distance in the shape of a rugged V, and just at the
bottom, every now and then, there was a bright glow of fire visible.
The glow then sank completely out of sight