island at present--at least while the volcano is
active."

The hermit smiled almost pitifully. "I do not apprehend danger," he
said, "at least nothing unusual. But it happens that my business
requires me to leave in the course of a few days at any rate, so,
whether the eruption becomes fiercer or feebler, it will not matter to
us. I have preparations to make, however, and I have no doubt you won't
object to remain till all is ready for a start?"

"Oh, as to that," returned the youth, slightly hurt by the implied doubt
as to his courage, "if _you_ are willing to risk going off the earth
like a skyrocket, I am quite ready to take my chance of following you!"

"An' Moses am de man," said the negro, smiting his broad chest with his
fist, "what's ready to serve as a rocket-stick to bof, an' go up along
wid you!"

The hermit made the nearest approach to a laugh which Nigel had yet
seen, as he left the cave to undertake some of the preparations above
referred to.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 2: See _The Eruption of Krakatoa and Subsequent Phenomena_, p.
11. (Truebner and Co., London.)]

CHAPTER IX.

DESCRIBES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, A SINGULAR MEETING UNDER PECULIAR
CIRCUMSTANCES.

There is unquestionably a class of men--especially Englishmen--who are
deeply imbued with the idea that the Universe in general, and our world
in particular, has been created with a view to afford them what they
call fun.

"It would be great fun," said an English commercial man to a friend who
sat beside him, "to go and have a look at this eruption. They say it is
Krakatoa which has broken out after a sleep of two centuries, and as it
has been bursting away now for nearly a week, it is likely to hold on
for some time longer. What would you say to charter a steamer and have a
grand excursion to the volcano?"

The friend said he thought it would indeed be "capital fun!"

We have never been able to ascertain who these Englishmen were, but they
must have been men of influence, or able to move men of influence, for
they at once set to work and organised an excursion.

The place where this excursion was organised was Batavia. Although that
city was situated in Java, nearly a hundred miles distant from Krakatoa,
the inhabitants had not only heard distinctly the explosions of the
volcano, but had felt some quakings of the earth and much rattling of
doors and windows, besides a sprinkling of ashes, which indicated that
the eruption, even in