y motion beneath his feet.

"Only as a last resource," he muttered, as he breathed freely once more;
and he could not repress a shudder as he stepped once more on solid
ground, plainly enough marked by the abounding growth, and grasping
fully how horrible a quagmire of hot slime was hidden by the partially
hardened crust over which he had passed.

Turning his face now toward the mountain, he hesitated for a few
moments, and then determined, as the distance seemed so short, to try
and do something now he was there; and in the intent of climbing a few
hundred feet up its side so as to get a view beyond, he marked out what
seemed to be the most open way, and started for the foot of the great
slope.

CHAPTER TEN.

A NIGHT IN THE FOREST.

It required no little steady determination to attack that ascent.
Oliver's nerves had been terribly shaken by that which he had gone
through. The heat was intense beneath the trees, where hardly a breath
of air reached him, and it was impossible to keep off the sense of
loneliness and awe brought on by the knowledge that he was in the home
of Nature's most terrible forces, and that the huge mountain in front,
now looking so calm and majestic, might at any moment begin to belch
forth showers of white-hot stones and glowing scoria, as it poured
rivers of liquid lava down its sides. At any moment too he knew that he
might step into some bottomless rift, or be overcome by gases, without
calculating such minor chances as losing his way in the pathless
wilderness through which he was struggling, or coming in contact with
some dangerous beast.

But he set his teeth and toiled on, dragging thorny creepers aside,
climbing over half-rotten tree-trunks, whose mouldering bark gave way,
and set at liberty myriads of virulent ants. Once or twice he grasped
leaves which were worse than the home-growing nettle. But he struggled
on, though, with the feeling growing stronger, that if he got through
the patch of forest before dark, it would be as much as he could manage,
for the difficulties increased at every step.

Suddenly he stopped short, and caught at the nearest tree-trunk to save
himself from falling, for the giddiness returned, and he stood panting,
trying to master the horrible sensation by drawing a deeper breath.
Then he clung more tightly to the tree, and knew what this sense of
vertigo meant; for it was no vapour that had overcome him, but the
sensation of the earth heaving bene