coa-nut groves; and beyond that, rocky jungle, full of
ridge and hollow, mound of verdure, and darksome glade and chasm, down
which trickled streams of water, such as had risen in the heights which
culminated in the smoking cone of the volcano, while here and there the
streams gave marked traces of their sources by sending up faint clouds
of steam.

Mark felt as he lay back in the stern and gazed at the glorious panorama
that he could watch the various phases of beauty in the landscape for
ever. But then he was not rowing, and the motion of the boat and the
dipping of his hands in the water kept him comparatively cool.

Still, in spite of its beauty it was impossible to gaze shoreward
without a feeling of awe. For there had been that trembling of the
earth; there were here and there openings in the trees through which
vast blackened roads of rock seemed to come down to the sea, zigzag
tracks which it was plain enough were the cooled-down and hardened
streams of lava which had made their way to the sea during some eruption
of the calmly beautiful mountain which rose so peacefully toward the
clouds, one of which seemed to have remained to act as its feathery
crown.

Then, too, there was the remembrance of that terrible roar which they
had heard in the jungle, and every now and then Mark's eyes searched the
trees at the edge beyond the sands, and he longed with a sensation of
shrinking to catch sight of the creature which had given them all so
much alarm.

But search how he would, as the boat went steadily on, there was no sign
of animal life ashore but the birds. Once or twice he fancied he could
see something like a lizard run across the heated rocks, but he could
not be sure. But of birds there seemed to be plenty. Flocks of doves,
large lavender-plumed pigeons, white cockatoos, long-tailed lories, and
parrots whose feathers bore all the colours of the rainbow; but
shorewards that was all. In the lagoon it was very different.

"Sha'n't want for fish," said Gregory, as he dipped his oar--he and the
captain now giving the men a rest.

As he spoke a shoal was making the water dance just ahead and completely
changing its colour, for, as they fed upon the small fry with which the
surface gleamed, the sea was dappled with rings, serried with ridges,
and seemed as if it were a fluid of mingled gold and silver beneath
which some volcanic action was going on, which made it boil and flush
and ripple till the bows of