Evening star., 1900-04-07


working great Obeah for you now. The
| jombis are all about us. They will protect
your
And indeed 1t is true that we did feel all
about US the sense of invisible presenceS-
Yet the sensation was no pleasurabie one,
but rather as if some one unseen were
about to put his hand your shoulder in
| the dark.
At this moment Saul Mark ordered Will
| to be chained to another armed guard.
They cast the dead man loose. UIe died
| while we stood looking, strangely contorted
and of a visage that blackened under our
very eyes.)
Forward commanded Saul Lead on.
Yellow Jack, if you know the way. There
is not moment to waste 1t will soon be
morning
Then Eborra summoned to the front all
the blacks and Indian laborers and serfs to
bring their macbctes and cut way
through the tapgle. He himself held aloft
the lantern and directed them. 1t was a
strange sight, the red throbbing glow going
and coming like furnace that dies out and
| is continually refreshed. The dense black
ness of the canopy of leaves overhead en-
vetoped US. The waste of hanging Negeta-
Bile cordage seemed trying to entangle us
lianes and lialines like huge hawsers and
cables, others again thin as trout lines As
the light of the lantern flashed across these
other plants were seen clinging to them as
the miStletoe does to an apple tree in the
orchard at New MilnS-rosetteS of gorgeous
bloom. farng red and white and orange
even III tlldl SOHDeF Ignt, some tleu ike
farors on the lianas, others dropping un-
eNpectedly from above like a spider letting
himself down out of the midst of his web.
In this place the machetes made fierce
play. Hack and slash and cut they went.
Green fruits, strange and leathern apples,
horny plurs like musket balls, insects like
walking twigs. vast spiders with legs that
burnt they touched the bare skin, hairy
caterpillarS as big as bean pods raned
down upon our heads. But still Eborra
FASTENED the work. and we made our way
toward the source of the light.
We rose gradually as we proceeded. pass
ing the great swamp by firmer path than
that which we had formerly crossed from
the direction of the pirate village. y soft,
steamy mist, itnpregnated with a sulphur
Gus smell, swelled and billowed about us.
Suddenly out Of the dense shadows and
creeping vapors of the high woods We
emerged upon a wonderful scene. Before
us rose great black hill, In shape most
like the Law of North Berwick seen from
the shoulder of Mcorfoot; but it was not
the hollow tower we had seen. The dense
undergrowth the matted carpet of moss
and wild hemp, the quaking hill-all had
vanished. There was hot and deadly taint
in the air which kept us gaspils Cur
mouths became dry as the dead bones of
the desert with the thin sandy grit that
showered upon us and seemed to psrvade
everything, crunching between our tech as
We walked.
That which fronted us now was no cas-
teIla.ed wall Of black basalt. The dry
black sand had grown hot under foot and
crumbling slopes of loosa gray ash sloped
steeply up to hilltop which suorted aud
roared above us. Subterraneous rumblings
made our hearts quiver within, and the red
llght we had seen sprang upward and anon
sank low. We We're now near enough TO see
that this was not fire but as we say in
Scotland. the ''skarrow," or reflection of
the fiery heart OF the mountain thrown up
ward on the great hooded column of smoke
shaped like a palm trea or long-stalked
mushroom, that lowered oboya all ioto ba
sky.
The dawn was now coming fast and the
column of smoke or steam changed its as
pect every moment, now growing mink like
a rose leaf and anon flashing into white
ness. as, rising out of the sea, the sun
smote its upper part long before it reached
us where We stood among the black and
blasted growthS on the edge of the forest
Eborra came close to us We stood gaz-
ing upward. 1t was the first tina / had
ever seen MN really smile, for l do not
count the grmacing of Yellow Jack He
pointed toward the mountain We cOuld SEQ
breaking through the jungle before us
Harry Morgan has come himself for his
treasure, he said, and has brought his
master along with him, They are both
very glad to see Master Saul"
And indeed there was something eminent
ly deVllSh in the smoking, coughing spit
tlng. roaring monster before U.S. | looked
across to where Saul Mark stood shading
his eyes with his hands and watching the
raging fire mountain where he had expect
ed the quiet lake of pitch. 1t must have
been terrible disappointment to him. Yet
of that he showed nothing
"Forward!' he cried, pointing upward to
the cone of ashes. And first of all the eX-
pedition he started up the windward side
of the fiery mountain.
Bring thesA lads along!' he cried to our
guards thinking of us even in that mo-
ment of disillusionment.
And so, bent double by the slope of the
mountain and Slipping among the loose
cllnkers oil the lava streams, We mounted
as best we could after him. Anna came
llghtfoot with us, often running a little be-
fore and giving us a hand when otherwise
the weight of our chains would have
brought us to a standstill.
1t was very near now. The fiery furnace
in which Saul Mark designed that we
should walk. But there was in my heart
none of the confidence of the three youths
IN the book of Daniel-and that in spite of
both Eborra and Capt. Stansfield
Suddenly, as we mounted the cone the
black ashes changed to crystals of sulphur
yellow and brown, glstening like the
stones which come from off the mountain
called Cairngorm. Wide black riffs and
holes, their sides fealnered in brightest red
and yellow, led down into the heart of the
mount. These continually belched up burn
ing steam and choking odors. which blew
in our faces like the breath of demons II
this was Obeah, as Eborra said, l wished
that Obeah had bean somewhat sweeter of
throat, for the hot reek blasting in my face
turned me sick and faint and / SWayed
upon VIII as 1 stood.
At last we came out upon the unstable
summit. 1t had lip narrow, crumbling
and dangerous There was, however. a
wind here which blew most of the smoke
away from us, SO that the place was more
tolerable than upon the breathless slopes
beneath.
l looked over into the crater, setting NV
breast to the edge and holding Annals hand
as l did so. My guard would on no ac-
count approach nearer, but stood at the
limit of the chain, sinking his halbert deem
in the ash for holding post, and indeed
l do not blame him, for the sights and
sounds were heartshaking enough
This is what 1 saw:
Immediately beneath me and so abruntlv
SO that one could toss a stone to the hof-
tom, was a lake (as it seemed), no longer
of pitch sluggishly turning over in its
sleep, but of fire bubbling merrily, like a
great broth pot. From this jets of steam
Missed furiously upward. Blocks of glow
ing rock spat out iciously, and when a
loose stone or boulder fell from the preci-
pices above into the caldron it was in
stantly dispersed, often exploding with a
loud report like a bombsheN and casting
the fragments high over our heads as we
lay and watched. 1 have listened to pleas
anter music than the sound of these black