. Here the guides were waiting, and after some parleying in
Italian, Miss Morley engaged a couple of them to escort her party. Led
by these men, who knew every inch of the way, they started to walk to
the crater of the volcano. A cinder path had been made along the edge of
the cone, having on the left side a steep ridge of ashes, and on the
right a sheer drop of many thousand feet. From this strange road there
were weird and beautiful effects--for it was above the region of the
clouds, which floated below, sometimes hiding the landscape, and
sometimes revealing glorious stretches of country, with gleams of
sunshine falling on the white houses of towns miles below, and blue
reaches of sea with mountains beyond. Great volumes of smoke kept coming
down from the summit, and blowing in a dense cloud, then clearing for a
few minutes and forming again. There were booming sounds like the firing
of cannons that seemed to issue from the smoke.

Very much awed by these impressive surroundings the party kept close
together. The guides, in their gray uniforms and caps with red bands,
were a comforting feature of the excursion. But for their encouragement
the girls would have been too much scared to proceed. Delia was clinging
to Peachy, and Lorna held Irene's arm tightly. Miss Morley, who had been
before, kept assuring everybody that there was no danger, and after a
few minutes they grew sufficiently accustomed to the scene to thoroughly
enjoy the magnificent effects of the clouds circling below them. But the
guides were calling "Haste," for the mist was clearing, and it would be
possible to get a view of the crater. They all scurried along the path,
and suddenly to the left, instead of the high ridge of cinders, they
could look down into a deep rocky ravine. From this hollow vapors were
rising as from a witch's cauldron, but every now and then the wind
dispersed them as if lifting a veil, revealing a glimpse of the crater.
At the bottom of the ravine stood a great cone, from the mouth of which
poured dense clouds of smoke, and between the smoke could be seen fire,
as if the interior of the cone were a red-hot furnace. Sometimes the
vapors were shadowy as gray phantoms, sometimes glowing red with the
reflection of the fire within, and as they whirled round the dim ravine
loud explosions broke the silence. The view was as fleeting and
evanescent as a landscape in a dream; one minute there would be nothing
but a bank of mist and deadly