as to get
higher and higher, and more round to windward?"

"I'm afraid that it will be the same all about the mouth of the crater,"
said Panton, "but we'll try."

It was a simple expedient that they ought to have thought of before, and
Smith proved to be correct, for as they wound on slowly upwards the heat
grew greater, but they began to be aware of soft puffs of wind, and at
the end of another half-hour, they had climbed to where a steady soft
current of cool air blew against them. This made the final part of the
toilsome ascent so bearable that as they reached a glistening vitreous
stream of greyish hue which looked as if the crater had brimmed over and
poured down this molten matter, Oliver leaped upon it and ran for a
couple of hundred yards. Then he disappeared suddenly, and horrified
the rest, who followed as fast as they could go.

But there was no cause of alarm. As they reached the top of the slope
there stood their companion some twenty feet below them on the rugged,
jagged and fissured slope of the crater gazing down at a dull glistening
lake of molten matter, but so covered with a grey scum that it was only
from time to time that a crack appeared, out of which darted a glare so
bright that it was visible in the full sunshine, while a tremendous glow
struck upon their faces, making their eyes smart as they gazed at the
transparent quivering gas which rose up from the molten mass.

A stronger breeze was blowing here, bearing the heat away, otherwise it
would have been unbearable, and they made their way on the chaos of
cindery rock which lay about in blocks riven and split in every form,
some glazed by the glass of the mighty natural furnace, some of a clear
vesicular silvery grey, while a hundred yards or so distant and about
fifty lower than where they stood, the lake of molten matter lay about
circular and apparently half a mile across. The rim of the gigantic cup
which from below had looked so regular was now seen to be broken into a
thousand cracks and crevices, some going right down through the greyish
ash and pumice nearly to the edge of the lake.

No one spoke, it was as if they were too much stricken by awe, as they
gazed at this outlet of the earth's inner fires, wondering at the way in
which solid rock was turned by the intensity of the heat into a fluid
which now in places they could see was in a state of ebullition, and
formed rings flowing away from the boiling centre like so much water.