de man ob de moon, Massa Nadgel," said Moses, with an air
at once so truthful and so solemn that the young man gave it up with a
laugh of resignation.

On arriving at Perboewatan, and ascending its sides, they at last became
aware of the approach of the excursion steamer.

"Strange," muttered the hermit, "vessels don't often touch here."

"Perhaps they have run short of water," suggested Nigel.

"Even if they had it would not be worth their while to stop here for
that," returned the hermit, resuming the ascent of the cone after an
intervening clump of trees had shut out the steamer from view.

It was with feelings of profound interest and considerable excitement
that our hero stood for the first time on the top of a volcanic cone and
gazed down into its glowing vent.

The crater might be described as a huge basin of 3000 feet in diameter.
From the rim of this basin on which the visitors stood the sides sloped
so gradually inward that the flat floor at the bottom was not more than
half that in diameter. This floor--which was about 150 feet below the
upper edge--was covered with a black crust, and in the centre of it was
the tremendous cavity--between one and two hundred feet in diameter--
from which issued the great steam-cloud. The cloud was mixed with
quantities of pumice and fragments of what appeared to be black glass.
The roar of this huge vent was deafening and stupendous. If the reader
will reflect on the wonderful hubbub that can be created even by a
kitchen kettle when superheated, and on the exasperating shrieks of a
steamboat's safety-valve in action, or the bellowing of a fog-horn, he
may form some idea of the extent of his incapacity to conceive the
thunderous roar of Krakatoa when it began to boil over.

When to this awful sound there were added the intermittent explosions,
the horrid crackling of millions of rock-masses meeting in the air, and
the bubbling up of molten lava--verily it did not require the
imagination of a Dante to see in all this the very vomiting of Gehenna!

So amazed and well-nigh stunned was Nigel at the sights and sounds that
he neither heard nor saw the arrival of the excursionists, until the
equally awe-stricken Moses touched him on the elbow and drew his
attention to several men who suddenly appeared on the crater-brim not
fifty yards off, but who, like themselves, were too much absorbed with
the volcano itself to observe the other visitors. Probably they took
them for s