ored it as well as I could. It bled pretty
freely, and that will keep the wound wholesome."

"Bled?" said the young fellow wonderingly, as he raised his hand, and
found that a thick bandage was round his forehead.

"Yes; we were all thrown down when she struck, but you got the worst of
it."

"She struck?--the ship? Then we have all been wrecked?"

"Well, yes," said the mate, giving his head a vicious kind of rub; "I
suppose we must call it a wreck. Anyhow, we're ashore."

"And it isn't so dark?" said Oliver, rising to his feet and feeling so
giddy that he caught at the nearest rope to save himself from falling.

"No, it isn't so dark, for the clouds are passing away. We shall have
daylight directly."

"Morning?"

"No; it's quite late to-morrow afternoon," said the mate grimly.

"But I don't hear that thundering now?"

"No; it's all over seemingly, thank goodness," said the mate, as his
injured companion looked wonderingly up at the thick, blackened clouds
still hanging overhead, and listened quite expectant for the next
terrible detonation. "I began to think we were going to be carried
along full speed into some awful fiery hole on the top of that wave, and
that when we struck the water was going on to put out the fire, and I
suppose it did."

"What?" cried Lane, looking round him, and then at the mate, to see if
he were in his right senses.

"Yes, you may look, Mr Lane," he said. "I'm all right, only a bit
scared; I know what I'm saying, and as soon as it get's light enough
you'll see."

"But I don't understand."

"No, nor anybody else, sir, but Nature, who's been having a regular turn
up. I s'pose you know that we were in for a great eruption?"

"Yes, of course."

"And somehow mixed up with the storm, there was an earthquake?"

"No, I did not grasp that, only that we were being carried toward a
burning mountain; but I don't see any glow from the volcano now."

"No; it's all out, and I ought to have said a sea-quake. It seems to me
it was like this: a great place opened somewhere, out of which the flame
and smoke and thunderings came, till it had half spent its strength, and
then the sea mastered it, and ran into the great hole and put out the
fire, but it took all the sea to do it."

"I say, Mr Rimmer," exclaimed Oliver Lane, staring hard at the mate,
"did you get a heavy blow on the head when we came ashore?"

"No; I had all my trouble before the shock came that sent you down, I
mean