when we struck I'm as clear as a bell now, sir, and know what I'm
saying."

"But the sea--I don't hear any waves now. There are no breakers, the
deck is not flooded, and yet you say we are ashore?"

"You can't see any breakers, and they can't," said the mate, pointing to
a group dimly seen through the gloom clustered together and looking over
the vessel's side, "because it's as I tell you, the earth opened with
that eruption, and the seas all ran down the hole."

"Mr Rimmer!"

"That's right, sir. We're ashore, but it's on the bottom of the sea."

"Nonsense!" cried Oliver Lane.

"Oh, very well, look over the side, then. Where's the water? I've been
looking and listening, and there isn't a drop to be heard; it's too dark
to see anything yet. Now, listen again."

"I can hear nothing," said Oliver.

"No, not a splash, and the great volcano is put out. That isn't smoke
which makes it so dark, but steam rising from the big hole in the
earth."

"Oh, impossible!" cried Lane.

"All right, sir, then make it possible by explaining it some other way.
But, as far as I can make out, our voyage is over, and we've got to walk
all the way home, and carry our traps."

"Wait till it gets light," said Lane confidently, "and you'll see that
you are wrong. Who's that, Drew?"

"Yes. Are you better?"

"Oh, yes, only a little giddy. Where's Panton?"

"Over yonder. I say, what do you think of this? Isn't it awful! You
know we are ashore."

"Mr Rimmer says we're on the bottom of the sea, with all the water run
out."

"Well, it does seem like it, but that's impossible, of course. We're
not in a lake."

"I don't know where we are gentlemen," said the mate, "only that I feel
like a fish out of water, and I'm quite in the dark."

"Wherever we are," said Drew, "we have been in the midst of an awful
natural convulsion, and if we can escape with life, I shall feel glad to
have been a witness of such a scene."

"I'm thinking about our poor ship, sir," said the mate. "She's of more
consequence to me than Nature in convulsions. Oh, if these clouds would
only rise and the light come so that we could see!"

"It is coming," cried Lane. "It is certainly clearer over yonder. How
still everything is!"

_Scree-auh_!

A long-drawn, piercing, and harsh cry from a distance.

"What's that?" cried Drew.

"Fish," said the mate, drily. "Found there's no more water, and it's
going to die."

"Mr Rimmer," cried Lane, "w