ithout hesitation, the rope being steadily gathered in, and
when he was over he took a good grip of the ladder and drew it across as
well.

"I beg your pardon, Lane," said Panton, in a voice that only his
companion could hear. "It was only banter, but I ought to have known
better."

"All right, old fellow," cried his companion. "There, say no more."

The sun was growing intensely hot now, as Smith shouldered the ladder,
and they once more started up the slope, which rapidly grew steeper, so
stiff indeed was the ascent that Oliver, who led, after trying the
zigzag approach and finding it too difficult, bore away to the east,
making the ascent more gradual, and as if the intention was to form a
corkscrew-like path round the upper part of the mountain.

"We've done wrong," he said, after a couple of hours' struggle upwards,
"we ought to have gone to the west, and then by this time we should have
been in the shade instead of roasting here."

They had paused to have a bit of lunch and rest, for the heat was
intense now, and the cracks or rifts in the mountain slope more
frequent, but they were not half the width of that which had been just
crossed, and as the party had grown more confident they took each in
turn readily enough.

"We must make the best of it now," said Panton, "and I can't help
thinking that we are doing right."

"Why?" asked Drew.

"It seems to me that it would be impossible to get up to the crater edge
on account of these horrible hot gases which rise from the cracks. We
had better aim at getting round to the other side, and looking out from
there as high up as we can climb. We shall know then whether the place
is an island. What do you say, Lane?"

"The same as you do. I've been thinking so for an hour. You see, the
ashes get looser as we climb higher, and the mountain steeper. What
looked easy enough from below proves to be difficult in the extreme, and
if we go much higher I feel sure that we shall set loose a regular
avalanche and begin sliding down altogether."

A quarter of an hour later they started off again somewhat refreshed,
but suffering terribly from the volcanic heat radiating from the ashes
as well as from that from the sun, but they pressed on steadily, rising
higher and gradually getting round the north slope, though the farther
they tramped over the yielding ashes, the more they were impressed by
the fact that the mountain was ten times greater than they had imagined
i