, but only to rise up again,
and this was continued as the young naturalist watched, suggesting to
him the fact that the crater must be full of boiling lava which rose to
the edge in its ebullitions and then dropped below the rugged wall.

Ten minutes later the glowing stones which had fallen, looked black and
grey; the cloud was at a distance, and there was nothing to indicate
that the beautifully shaped mountain ever presented another aspect than
that of peace.

Oliver Lane stood looking up with the longing to ascend to the edge of
the crater growing strong once more, but he was fagged by his exertions,
bathed in perspiration, and aware of the fact that an intense glowing
heat rose from the surface all around him, while the air he breathed
seemed to produce a strange suffocating effect when he turned his face
from the wind which swept over the mountain slope.

In a few minutes he decided that it would be madness to persevere, and
that it would be wise to wait until the volcano was in a more quiescent
state, for at any minute there might come a fresh explosion from the
mouth from which he might not be able to escape so easily.

He looked longingly round to try and make out something of value to
report as to their position, but the mountain shut everything off in the
direction lying north, and he was reluctantly about to continue his
descent when he felt the stones beneath his feet tremble again. Then
came a report like that of a huge cannon, and what seemed to be an
enormous rock shot upward for hundreds of feet, hung for a moment or two
in the clear air, and then fell back into the crater.

That was enough. A burning thirst and a sensation of breathing
something which irritated his lungs, awakened him to the fact that he
must find water, and, regardless of the heat, he once more began to
hurry downward toward the level plain from which the mountain curved up
in so beautiful a cone.

Oliver Lane soon found that he was not returning upon his steps, and
though apparently not far from where he ascended, it was plain enough
that, even if they had not been obliterated by the falling ash and
cinders, the fragments flowed together again like sand. A greater proof
still was afforded him in the fact that about a quarter of a mile lower
down his farther progress was checked by a rugged chasm running right
across his path, apparently cutting him off from the lower portion and
extending to right and left farther than he c