ile a hot stifling wind blew
around us in fitful gusts.

The crew assembled hastily on deck, and most of them were under the
belief that a frightful hurricane was pending; but the captain coming on
deck, soon explained the phenomena.

"It's only a volcano," said he. "I knew there was one hereabouts, but
thought it was extinct. Up there and furl top-gallant-sails; we'll
likely have a breeze, and it's well to be ready."

As he spoke, a shower began to fall, which we quickly observed was not
rain, but fine ashes. As we were many miles distant from the volcano,
these must have been carried to us from it by the wind. As the captain
had predicted, a stiff breeze soon afterwards sprang up, under the
influence of which we speedily left the volcano far behind us; but during
the greater part of the night we could see its lurid glare and hear its
distant thunder. The shower did not cease to fall for several hours, and
we must have sailed under it for nearly forty miles, perhaps farther.
When we emerged from the cloud, our decks and every part of the rigging
were completely covered with a thick coat of ashes. I was much
interested in this, and recollected that Jack had often spoken of many of
the islands of the Pacific as being volcanoes, either active or extinct,
and had said that the whole region was more or less volcanic, and that
some scientific men were of opinion that the islands of the Pacific were
nothing more or less than the mountain tops of a huge continent which had
sunk under the influence of volcanic agency.

Three days after passing the volcano, we found ourselves a few miles to
windward of an island of considerable size and luxuriant aspect. It
consisted of two mountains, which seemed to be nearly four thousand feet
high. They were separated from each other by a broad valley, whose thick-
growing trees ascended a considerable distance up the mountain sides; and
rich level plains, or meadow-land, spread round the base of the
mountains, except at the point immediately opposite the large valley,
where a river seemed to carry the trees, as it were, along with it down
to the white sandy shore. The mountain tops, unlike those of our Coral
Island, were sharp, needle-shaped, and bare, while their sides were more
rugged and grand in outline than anything I had yet seen in those seas.
Bloody Bill was beside me when the island first hove in sight.

"Ha!" he exclaimed, "I know that island well. They call it Emo."