the soil. The stream
rolled beside and beneath him, and then, taking a sudden wind round
the spot on which he stood, interposed its liquid fire--a broad and
impassable barrier--between his resting-place and escape. There he
stood, cut off from descent, and with no alternative but to retrace his
steps towards the crater, and thence seek--without guide or clew--some
other pathway.

For a moment his courage left him; he cried in despair, and in that
over-strained pitch of voice which is never heard afar off, to the
guide, to Merton, to return, to aid him.

No answer came; and the Englishman, thus abandoned solely to his own
resources, felt his spirit and energy rise against the danger. He turned
back, and ventured as far towards the crater as the noxious exhalation
would permit; then, gazing below, carefully and deliberately he chalked
out for himself a path, by which he trusted to shun the direction the
fire-stream had taken, and trod firmly and quickly over the crumbling
and heated strata.

He had proceeded about fifty yards when he halted abruptly: an
unspeakable and unaccountable horror, not hitherto felt amidst all his
peril, came over him. He shook in every limb; his muscles refused his
will; he felt, as it were, palsied and death-stricken. The horror, I
say, was unaccountable, for the path seemed clear and safe. The fire,
above and behind, burned out clear and far; and beyond, the stars lent
him their cheering guidance. No obstacle was visible, no danger seemed
at hand. As thus, spell-bound and panic-stricken, he stood chained to
the soil--his breast heaving, large drops rolling down his brow, and
his eyes starting wildly from their sockets--he saw before him, at some
distance, gradually shaping itself more and more distinctly to his gaze,
a Colossal Shadow,--a shadow that seemed partially borrowed from the
human shape, but immeasurably above the human stature, vague, dark,
almost formless and differing--he could not tell where or why--not only
from the proportions, but also from the limbs and outline of man.

The glare of the volcano, that seemed to shrink and collapse from this
gigantic and appalling apparition, nevertheless threw its light,
redly and steadily, upon another shape that stood beside, quiet and
motionless; and it was perhaps the contrast of these two things--the
Being and the Shadow--that impressed the beholder with the difference
between them,--the Man and the Superhuman. It was but for a moment