g miles away, I knew no more than
the babe unborn.

And then, all of a sudden, Vesuvius went off. It was a long time coming;
but when it came (though I say it that shouldn't) no man could ask to
see a better. At first it was just a son of a gun of a row, and a spout
of fire, and the wood lighted up so that you could see to read. And then
the trouble began. Uma and I were half buried under a wagonful of earth,
and glad it was no worse, for one of the rocks at the entrance of the
tunnel was fired clean into the air, fell within a couple of fathoms of
where we lay, and bounded over the edge of the hill, and went pounding
down into the next valley. I saw I had rather under-calculated our
distance, or overdone the dynamite and powder, which you please.

And presently I saw I had made another slip. The noise of the thing
began to die off, shaking the island; the dazzle was over; and yet the
night didn't come back the way I expected. For the whole wood was
scattered with red coals and brands from the explosion; they were all
round me on the flat; some had fallen below in the valley, and some
stuck and flared in the tree-tops. I had no fear of fire, for these
forests are too wet to kindle. But the trouble was that the place was
all lit up--not very bright, but good enough to get a shot by; and the
way the coals were scattered, it was just as likely Case might have the
advantage as myself. I looked all round for his white face, you may be
sure; but there was not a sign of him. As for Uma, the life seemed to
have been knocked right out of her by the bang and blaze of it.

There was one bad point in my game. One of the blessed graven images had
come down all afire, hair and clothes and body, not four yards away from
me. I cast a mighty noticing glance all round; there was still no Case,
and I made up my mind I must get rid of that burning stick before he
came, or I should be shot there like a dog.

It was my first idea to have crawled, and then I thought speed was the
main thing, and stood half up to make a rush. The same moment from
somewhere between me and the sea there came a flash and a report, and a
rifle bullet screeched in my ear. I swung straight round and up with my
gun, but the brute had a Winchester, and before I could as much as see
him his second shot knocked me over like a nine-pin. I seemed to fly in
the air, then came down by the run and lay half a minute, silly; and
then I found my hands empty, and my gun had f