of my inattention
something happened. A wild shout burst from the men. I whirled, and saw to
my great joy a strip of sky westward between the cliff and the rock. And
at that very instant a billow larger than the ordinary rolled beneath us,
and in the back suction of its passage I could dimly make out cruel,
dangerous rocks lying almost under our keel.

Slowly we crept away. Our progress seemed infinitesimal, and yet it was
real. In a while we had gained sea room; in a while more we were fairly
under sailing way, and the cliffs had begun to drop from our quarter. With
one accord we looked back. Percy Darrow waved his hand in an indescribably
graceful and ironic gesture; then turned square on his heel and sauntered
away to the north valley, out of the course of the lava. That was the last
I ever saw of him.

As we made our way from beneath the island, the weight of the wind seemed
to lessen. We got the foresail on her, then a standing jib; finally little
by little all her ordinary working canvas. Before we knew it, we were
bowling along under a stiff breeze, and the island was dropping astern.

From a distance it presented a truly imposing sight. The centre shot
intermittent blasts of ruddy light; explosions, deadened by distance,
still reverberated strongly; the broad canopy of brown-red, split with
lightnings, spread out like a huge umbrella. The lurid gloom that had
enveloped us in the atmosphere apparently of a nether world had given
place to a twilight. Abruptly we passed from it to a sun-kissed, sparkling
sea. The breeze blew sweet and strong; the waves ran untortured in their
natural long courses.

At once the men seemed to throw off the superstitious terror that had
cowed them. Pulz and Thrackles went to bail the extra dory, alongside,
which by a miracle had escaped swamping. The Nigger disappeared in the
galley. Perdosa relieved Handy Solomon at the wheel; and Handy Solomon
came directly over to me.

XVIII

THE CATASTROPHE

He approached me with a confidence that proclaimed the new leader. A brace
of Colt's revolvers swung from his belt, the tatters of his blood-stained
garments hung about him.

"Well, here we are," he remarked.

I nodded, waiting for what he had to disclose.

"And lucky for you that you're here at all, say I," he continued. "And now
that you're here, w'at are you going to do? That's the question--w'at are
you going to do?" He cocked his head sidewise and looked at me
specul