ory that fire is the abode of living animalculae.

On the grassy edge of the crater we paused and looked down the slope,
where the circle of steam rose, partly veiling the pale flash of fire
underneath.

"How near can we go?" I inquired.

"Quite near. Come; I'll guide you."

Leading me by the hand, she stepped over the brink and we began to
descend the easy grass slope together.

There was no difficulty about it at all. Down we went, nearer and nearer
to the wall of steam, until at last, when but fifteen feet away from it,
I felt the heat from the flames which sparkled below the wall of vapour.

Here we seated ourselves upon the grass, and I knitted my brows and fixed
my eyes upon this curious phenomenon, striving to discover some reason
for it.

Except for the vapour and the fires, there was nothing whatever volcanic
about this spectacle, or in the surroundings.

From where I sat I could see that the bed of fire which encircled the
crater; and the wall of vapour which crowned the flames, were about three
hundred feet wide. Of course this barrier was absolutely impassable.
There was no way of getting through it into the bottom of the crater.

A slight pressure from Miss Blythe's fingers engaged my attention; I
turned toward her, and she said:

"There is one more thing about which I have not told you. I feel a little
guilty, because _that_ is the real reason I asked you to come here."

"What is it?"

"I think there are emeralds on the floor of that crater."

"Emeralds!"

"I _think_ so." She felt in the ruffled pocket of her apron, drew out a
fragment of mineral, and passed it to me.

I screwed a jeweler's glass into my eye and examined it in astonished
silence. It was an emerald; a fine, large, immensely valuable stone, if
my experience counted for anything. One side of it was thickly coated
with vermilion paint.

"Where did this come from?" I asked in an agitated voice.

"From the floor of the crater. Is it _really_ an emerald?"

I lifted my head and stared at the girl incredulously.

"It happened this way," she said excitedly. "Father was painting a
picture up there by the edge of the crater. He left his palette on the
grass to go to the bungalow for some more tubes of colour. While he was
in the house, hunting for the colours which he wanted, I stepped out on
the veranda, and I saw some crows alight near the palette and begin
to stalk about in the grass. One bird walked right over his wet palett