bamboo
palings, disclosed the burly form of the boatswain with a shrinking
Malay in tow. He was jabbering in his native tongue, with much
gesticulation of his thin arms, and going into contortions at every
dozen paces in a sort of pantomime to emphasize his words. Williams
urged him along unceremoniously to the steps of the veranda.

"Perhaps you can get the straight of this, Mr. Barnaby," said the
boatswain. "He swears that the flame-devil in the volcano has swallowed
his master alive."

The poor fellow seemed indeed in a state of complete funk. With his thin
legs quaking under him, he poured forth in Malay a crazed, distorted
tale. According to Wadakimba, Leavitt--or Farquharson, to give him his
real name--had awakened the high displeasure of the flame-devil within
the mountain. Had we not observed that the cone was smoking furiously?
And the dust and heavy taint of sulphur in the air? Surely we could
feel the very tremor of the ground under our feet. All that day the
enraged monster had been spouting mud and lava down upon the white
_tuan_, who had remained in the bungalow, drinking heavily and bawling
out maledictions upon his enemy. At length, in spite of Wadakimba's
efforts to dissuade him, he had set out to climb to the crater, vowing
to show the flame-devil who was master. He had compelled the terrified
Wadakimba to go with him a part of the way. The white _tuan_--was he
really a god, as he declared himself to be?--had gone alone up the
tortuous, fissured slopes, at times lost to sight in yellowish clouds of
gas and steam, while his screams of vengeance came back to Wadakimba's
ears. Overhead, Lakalatcha continued to rumble and quiver and clear his
throat with great showers of mud and stones.

Farquharson must have indeed parted with his reason to have attempted
that grotesque sally. Listening to Wadakimba's tale, I pictured the
crazed man, scorched to tatters, heedless of bruises and burns,
scrambling up that difficult and perilous ascent, and hurling his
ridiculous blasphemy into the flares of smoke and steam that issued from
that vast caldron lit by subterranean fires. At its simmering the whole
island trembled. A mere whiff of the monster's breath and he would have
been snuffed out, annihilated in an instant. According to Wadakimba, the
end had indeed come in that fashion. It was as if the mountain had
suddenly given a deep sigh. The blast had carried away solid rock. A
sheet of flame had licked the spot