nervating, I'm sure."

"Yes, let's dress," cried Oliver, and soon after they were making a
hearty meal, gazing up at the great slope they had to surmount, and
noting as they ate, the sinuous lines which appeared here and there upon
the mountain-side, and which they knew, from experience, to be cracks.

"Must dodge all of them, if we can," said Panton with his mouth full.
"If not, Smith must lay the ladder across for a bridge."

"But, I say, Lane," said Drew, after gazing upward for some time in
silence, "didn't you lay it on a bit too thick when we found you?"

"Yes," said Panton, "about the difficulty of the climb. Why, it looks
nothing. Only a hot tiring walk. I say, we ought to be peeping down
into the crater in an hour's time."

"Yes, we ought to be," said Oliver, drily. "Look sharp, my lads, eat
all you can, and then let's start. The tent can stay as it is till we
come back. We'll take nothing but some food and our bottles of water.
You carry the ladder, Wriggs, and you that long pole and the ropes,
Smith."

"Ay, ay, sir," said the men in duet, and a quarter of an hour later
Oliver, as having been pioneer, took the lead, and leaving the rugged
rocky ground they planted their feet upon the slope and began to climb.

"Don't seem to get much nearer the top," said Drew at the end of two
hours, when he had proposed that they should halt for a few minutes to
admire the prospect, in which Panton at once began to take a great deal
of interest.

"No, we haven't reached the top yet," said Oliver, drily.

"What a view!" cried Drew. "Oughtn't we soon to see the brig?"

"No," replied Oliver; "if we cannot see the mountain from the vessel,
how can we expect to see the vessel from the mountain? Ready to go on?"

"Yes, directly," said Panton. "You can see the ocean, though, and the
surf on the barrier reef. But I don't see any sign of savages."

"Phew! What's that?" cried Drew, suddenly.

"Puff of hot air from the mountain, or else from some crack. There must
be one near."

Oliver looked round and upward, but no inequality was visible, and they
climbed slowly and steadily up for some hundred yards before Panton, who
was now first, stopped short.

"I say, look here!" he cried. "We're done, and must go back."

Oliver joined him, and then gazed away to the west.

"This is the great crack I told you about," he said, "but it is much
narrower here."

"And not so deep, eh?" said Panton, with a slight sne