ass of fused
metal (_massam igneam de scoria_) in pincers, which he hurled at them.
Where it struck the water about a furlong from them, it made the sea
boil and hiss. They had only escaped about a mile when they saw beings
swarming out upon the shore, throwing about molten masses, some after
them and some at one another, and then all went back into the forges and
set them blazing, until the whole island seemed one mass of fire. The
sea boiled like a boiling cauldron, and all day long the travellers
heard an awful wailing. Even when they were out of sight of the island,
the howls still rang in their ears, and the stench made their nostrils
smart. 'And Brendan said, "O ye soldiers of Christ, make you strong in
faith not feigned, and in the armour of the spirit, for we are upon the
coasts of hell. Watch, therefore, and play the man."'

The next day but one, they found the wind bearing them down upon
another mountain in the sea, black as coal, reaching steep down to the
sea, and whose top they could hardly see, but yet wrapt in soft mists.
When they came near it, the sole remaining of the three last come
brethren jumped out of the ship and waded to shore. Suddenly he showed
signs of terror, and cried out that he was being carried away and could
not return. The brethren in horror pushed the ship away from land, and
started towards the South. When they looked back they saw flames
shooting up from the top of the mountain, and then sinking in again, and
again surging up. It is a phenomenon familiar to any one who has watched
the top of a volcano--often even of iron-works--and which has been
splendidly described in the account of the burning essence of life in
_She_. From this sight they fled and journeyed for seven days toward the
South.

We now reach an incident founded upon that fact from the contemplation
of which the human mind perhaps shrinks more than from any other. But
the literary treatment of it is so curious and striking, and is rendered
all the more so, at least to me, because I am aware of only one other
attempt to grapple with it in the whole cycle of human invention, and
that in the very highest sphere of imaginative literature, that I think
that you will forgive me if I deal with it, and give at any-rate a part
of it in full. 'And after these things,' says the novelist, 'the Father
Brendan saw as it were a very thick mist, and when they drew nigh
thereto, there appeared unto them a little shape as it had been