The tribune. [volume] (Beaufort, S.C.) 1874-1876, 1876-06-21

othoho uioSc, CuttluS Ou HI view Ol bue
plateau, and when it dispersed found
the chasm had wideped to an extent
such rs precluded all hope of striding
and shower of hot ashes mixed with
blocks of pumice-stone warned me that
to irger was as perilous as to fly. Only
one mode Of escape seemed practicable,
and accordingly L skirted the chasm,
making for spot some three hundred
yards away, where rock appeared to
form natural bridge over the red-hot
fissure. Wrapping my shaggy sailors
Jacket around the child, to screen her as
far as possible from the hot ashes that
fell at intervals, I pushed resolutely on.
shall never, to my dying day, forget
what L underwent in the passage of
those three hundred yards. Gasping
and half suffocated by tho pestilential
vapors, blinded by the smoke, and with
eyes scared by the glare, and feet
scorched by the almost intolerable heat
of the earth, staggered on with my
burden in my arms. Twice the thin
crust that heaved beneath me seemed to
be breaking under our weight, and 1
gave myself up for lost; but at length,
dizzy and breathless, I reached therock,
and saw beyond it broad space cleared
by woodcutters, probably, for only the
stumps of trees long since felled pro-
truded from the soil. AS I did so, with
a crash the rock fell in, and the flames
leaped up like splashing water; but I
managed to plant one foot upon cor
ner of the great stone, and, with des-
perate bound, cleared the chasm, with
the child III my arms, and fell exhausted
on the turf beyond.
1t was late at night when, spent and
worn, I descended the mountain road,
and passed the Cantania, still carrying
the child, who had sometime since fallen
asleep with her fair little head upon my
shoulder. All that She could tell me
was that her name was Emma Harding,
andthat her family were lodged in large
hotel fronting the sea, and which from
the description I conjectured to be the
Alberso Reale. So it proved to be, and
l had the satisfaction of restoring the
lost lamb to her sorrowing relatives,
who had mourned her as dead, so utterly
certain had her fate appeared when she
was known to have been left on the
burning mountain.
While the child's mother, weeping,
caught her darling to her heart, Mr..
Harding approached the spot where I
oeoou, hoopoolo hhu wear y, WILL HdlT duu
garments singed, and shoes that had
crumbled away piecemeal from the
scorched feet they had sheltered, and
wrung my hand.
i am not a man of many words" he
said, "but you have laid me under a
very deep debt of gratitude, Mr..
Clements, and -
I did not hear the rest, save as a con-
fused hum like that of hive of bees,
for now the floor seemed to slide away
under my feet, and the walls to revolve,
and then all grew dark. They laid me
on q bed-for I had fainted-and
sprinkled water on my forehead, and
gave me cordials and wine, and gradually
my strength came back to me; but for
weeks I was too lame to be able to walk
without the support of crutch.
am well enough now, and they call
me Captain Clements, for am I not COM
mander of a fiLe ship in the Australia
trade, to which Mr.. Harding, her owner,
gave the name of the Emma, in honor
of the dear little thing that hid beneath
my rough pea-coat, when the fiery rain
OF Etna fell fast and thick around us2
[ have children of my own now,
blithely sporting in the garden of a
pretty cottage near the Mersey, and
pausing in their play now and again, as
tall ships pass, to ask when "papa"
Is coming back from sea.