“Well, this beats anything I’ve ever seen!”
Ned uttered the exclamation as the boys stood on the western lip of the fiery crater of Kilauea.
“Looks like the entrance to the bad place,” commented Herc.
All about the boys and their guide, not to forget Blue Lightning with his confining rope, shot up arid precipices, wrought into fantastic forms by fire and lava. Below them glowed the eternal fires of the volcano, and the air was filled with a sulphurous reek proceeding from several boiling springs.
Not a bush, or tree or a blade of vegetation of any sort was to be seen. Against the blue sky, like a smoking factory chimney, the crater poured heavenward unceasingly a veil of yellowish smoke.
[204]
The guide told them that it was some years since the volcano had been in eruption, but that at times streams of lava had flowed down the mountain side, wiping out plantations and native huts. Far out at sea, ships had been showered with the ashes, and a pall of smoke so dense as to render the island almost invisible had involved it in a perpetual twilight during the hours when the sun was above the horizon.
“In our tongue we call that ‘Bad Year,’” volunteered the guide.
“I’d like to get some souvenirs of this place to take home,” remarked Herc. “Look at that shelf down there. It seems to be formed of some sort of glittering rocks. I guess I could get some easy enough.”
“You’ll stay right here,” rejoined Ned firmly. “Every time you come ashore you get into trouble and I’m determined to keep you out of it this trip if I can.”
“Pshaw! that ledge isn’t more than twenty feet[205] down and it’s an easy scramble for a sailor,” scoffed Herc.
“Yes, but if you ever slipped?”
“Well, I’d be cremated free of charge, unless the mountain refused to swallow me and chucked me up again with a fireworks display.”
Both boys peered over the edge into the fiery abyss below. Even in the daylight they could catch a faint glimpse of nature’s vast furnaces. The guide told them that not long before a love-sick young Hawaiian had cast himself into the depths of the volcano when he learned of the death of his sweetheart. In ancient times before the white man came, he said, when a chief died many of his subjects were thrown alive into the fiery pit as a sacrifice to the gods.
“Umph!” grunted Herc. “I’ll bet it’s not much hotter than that bunker, at that.”
The guide told them to follow him to the other side of the crater where an even finer view could be obtained of the subterranean fires. Ned set[206] off by the Hawaiian’s side, listening with interest to his description of the old tribal rites that took place on the very ground which they now trod.
So engrossed was he with the guide’s tales and legends, as they made their way over the rough ground, that it was not till they had gone some distance that he noticed that Herc was not with them. At the same instant there came a wild yell and cry from the rear.
“Wow! Help! I’m a goner!”
A shoulder of rock hid from them the place where Ned had last seen Herc, but the boy darted quickly back. What he saw as he came into view of the spot almost froze the hot blood in his veins.
Straight down toward the fiery mouth of the volcano Herc was tumbling, grabbing frantically as he went any projecting bit of rock. But none of them held him.
“Heavens! He’ll fall into the volcano!” almost screamed Ned.
[207]
The sight was almost too painful to be borne. There didn’t appear to be a chance that Herc could save himself. To Ned and the guide it seemed that he was doomed to be plunged into the crater and burned to death in its glowing, oven-like depths.
But suddenly Ned gave a cry of joy. In his fall, Herc had struck the very ledge upon which he had spied the glittering specimens of rock, one of which he had been so anxious to procure. By an almost superhuman effort he had checked his fall, and was now lying trembling and pale on this insecure shelf overhanging the glowing mouth of the crater.
Ned set out running, with the guide at his heels. When he reached a spot directly above the ledge to which Herc was clinging, he shouted down at him:
“Are you all right, Herc?”
“Yes, so far; but the gases from this bake-oven are choking me. Get me out of here quick!”
[208]
“Can’t you climb up?”
“No; the cliff bulges out right above me. I could never make it.”
“Goodness, what are we to do? Here, you,” to the guide, “hurry and get a rope some place.”
“No can get rope nearer than Glenwood,” declared the guide.
“That will take too long.”
Ned racked his wits desperately for some way out of the dilemma. It was clear that Herc could not long hang suspended over the gaseous volcano without choking and losing his hold. And yet what was he to do?
In his quandary he glanced about him seeking some way out of the difficulty. Suddenly his eyes fell on Blue Lightning. The animal was nosing about among the rocks vainly seeking a blade of grass. From his neck trailed the long rope that Herc had purchased that morning.
“The very thing!” cried Ned, as his eyes fell on the rope. “What a bit of luck that Herc bought it!”
[209]
He ran to the edge of the cliff. Herc was still clinging on to the ledge.
“Hurry up on deck, there,” he hailed, “I’m getting sea-sick.”
“Can you hold on a few minutes longer?”
“I guess so; but this climate doesn’t agree with me very well.”
“Well, keep up your courage. I’m going to get you out.”
“How?”
............