ging
their men, and shouts from our own people, who had to repel the boarders,
when the boom was at last forced, with pikes and cutlasses. Just before
the dawn a strange thing happened. A great glowing coal, as it seemed,
fell with a hissing crash on the deck of the William Wilberforce, and
others dropped, with a strange sound and a dreadful odour of burning, in
the water all around us. Had the natives discovered some mode of
retaliating on our use of firearms?

I looked in the direction of their burning city, and beheld, on the sharp
peak of the highest mountain (now visible in the grey morning light), an
object like a gigantic pine-tree of fire. The blazing trunk rose, slim
and straight, from the mountain crest, and, at a vast height, developed a
wilderness of burning branches. Fearful hollow sounds came from the
hill, its sides were seamed with racing cataracts of living lava, of
coursing and leaping flames, which rolled down with incredible swiftness
and speed towards the doomed city. Then the waters of the harbour were
smitten and shaken, and the William Wilberforce rocked and heaved as in
the most appalling storm, though all the winds were silent, while a
mighty wave swept far inland towards the streams of fire. There was no
room for doubt; a volcanic eruption was occurring, and a submarine
earthquake, as not uncommonly happens, had also taken place. Our only
hope was in immediate flight. Presently steam was got up, and we steamed
away into the light of the glowing east, leaving behind us only a burning
island, and a fire like an ugly dawn flaring in the western sky.

When we returned in the evening, Boothland--as I may now indeed call it,
for Scheria has ceased to be--was one black smoking cinder.

Hardly a tree or a recognizable rock remained to show that this had once
been a peaceful home of men. The oracle, or prophecy of the old priest,
had been horribly, though, of course, quite accidentally, fulfilled.

* * * * *

Little remains to be told. On my return home, I chanced to visit the
British Museum, and there, much to my surprise, observed an old piece of
stone, chipped with the characters, or letters, in use among the natives
of Scheria.

"Why," said I, reading the words aloud, "these are the characters which
the natives employed on my island."

"These?" said the worthy official who accompanied me. "Why, these are
the most archaic Greek letters which have yet been discovered:
inscriptions