as we climbed, fog, red sun and silence.
It became apparent, after a little further progress, that we were no longer going upward. For a while longer we stumbled among the rocks of a kind of plateau and then found ourselves going definitely downward through the same infinitudes of monotonous gray stone, featureless save for the fantastic shapes given them by successive outpourings and crumblings of bluetonian material. I grew weary, begged Ashembe to halt, and as we paused again, throwing ourselves flat to rest, we heard a low drum-beat of sound, regularly repeated.
"What's that?" I asked, starting to a sitting position.
"The possibility is a volcano," he declared with entire calm. "Let us proceed with caution."
We "proceeded with caution" toward the sound. The down slope, like the upgrade before it, now came to an end, and we found ourselves in a valley between cyclopean blocks of detritus from some silent volcano, all as void of life or any sign of it as everything we had passed since we emerged from the swamp of the algae. The sound became louder, a steady boom-boom of reverberations somewhere in the distance, and when we stopped we could feel the ground vibrate with the attendant shock. Suddenly Ashembe gripped my arm and pointed straight ahead.
"You see?" he asked.
I could see nothing but the silent sun and rock and said so. "No? Well, come," and we toiled on for another quarter mile or so. My attention was taken up with negotiating the ground, which now began to show a series of alarming cracks beneath out feet, but when we next halted I could see dimly, in the distance, a black cloud like a darker spot in the surrounding murk, floating high above the surface. Beneath it and equally far was a great red funnel of flame, dimmed to a ghostly pink by the distance. The booming sound we heard came from it, and all around us the vibration of the ground was now clearly perceptible.
"A volcano?"
"Certainly. What else?"
We pressed on. The shock of the eruption became more pronounced as we advanced. Here and there small pieces of the gray rock would tumble from overhanging balconies of stone, startling by the sharp clash of sound they made in that enormous silence. The red outpouring of the volcano, with its crown of black cloud, became clearer, though the air was thicker than ever. One could see millions of tiny dust-motes dancing about as in a sunbeam. Off to one side, from a long crack, a slow curl of heavy vapor oozed into the air. I pointed it out to my companion.
"Ah!" he cried with awakened interest and in an instant was clambering over the rocks toward the spot, to hold over it one of the bottles he had brought. "If there is pleci anywhere here, it is within such gas," he announced as he put the bottle away in one of the pockets of his suit.
Still forward. (Why didn't he turn back?) The long valley up which we had been traveling gradually wore out to a flat and then became an upward slope as we approached the volcano. More fumaroles, like the one I had first seen, made their appearance to either side. The rocks seemed firmer for some peculiar reason, and Ashembe led the way with obvious caution. Then, rounding a block as big as a house that stood all by itself, he stopped altogether, indicating something ahead. I followed his finger to see a long, smoking surge of volcanic material moving ever so gently down the slope toward us.
"The magma," he said, and began to produce another collecting bottle.
I detained him. "Isn't it hot?"
"Certainly. But we have atotta suits. We would have been too hot long ago but for them. Temperature probably about forty of your centigrade system degrees." And leaving me to wonder over the statement, he was off with his bottle to get a sample of the gas from over the burning lava.
We turned back after that, guiding our course by means of Ashembe's "boshee." For myself I was quite ready to stop and take a prolonged rest. We had been traveling for something like five hours and had
It became apparent, after a little further progress, that we were no longer going upward. For a while longer we stumbled among the rocks of a kind of plateau and then found ourselves going definitely downward through the same infinitudes of monotonous gray stone, featureless save for the fantastic shapes given them by successive outpourings and crumblings of bluetonian material. I grew weary, begged Ashembe to halt, and as we paused again, throwing ourselves flat to rest, we heard a low drum-beat of sound, regularly repeated.
"What's that?" I asked, starting to a sitting position.
"The possibility is a volcano," he declared with entire calm. "Let us proceed with caution."
We "proceeded with caution" toward the sound. The down slope, like the upgrade before it, now came to an end, and we found ourselves in a valley between cyclopean blocks of detritus from some silent volcano, all as void of life or any sign of it as everything we had passed since we emerged from the swamp of the algae. The sound became louder, a steady boom-boom of reverberations somewhere in the distance, and when we stopped we could feel the ground vibrate with the attendant shock. Suddenly Ashembe gripped my arm and pointed straight ahead.
"You see?" he asked.
I could see nothing but the silent sun and rock and said so. "No? Well, come," and we toiled on for another quarter mile or so. My attention was taken up with negotiating the ground, which now began to show a series of alarming cracks beneath out feet, but when we next halted I could see dimly, in the distance, a black cloud like a darker spot in the surrounding murk, floating high above the surface. Beneath it and equally far was a great red funnel of flame, dimmed to a ghostly pink by the distance. The booming sound we heard came from it, and all around us the vibration of the ground was now clearly perceptible.
"A volcano?"
"Certainly. What else?"
We pressed on. The shock of the eruption became more pronounced as we advanced. Here and there small pieces of the gray rock would tumble from overhanging balconies of stone, startling by the sharp clash of sound they made in that enormous silence. The red outpouring of the volcano, with its crown of black cloud, became clearer, though the air was thicker than ever. One could see millions of tiny dust-motes dancing about as in a sunbeam. Off to one side, from a long crack, a slow curl of heavy vapor oozed into the air. I pointed it out to my companion.
"Ah!" he cried with awakened interest and in an instant was clambering over the rocks toward the spot, to hold over it one of the bottles he had brought. "If there is pleci anywhere here, it is within such gas," he announced as he put the bottle away in one of the pockets of his suit.
Still forward. (Why didn't he turn back?) The long valley up which we had been traveling gradually wore out to a flat and then became an upward slope as we approached the volcano. More fumaroles, like the one I had first seen, made their appearance to either side. The rocks seemed firmer for some peculiar reason, and Ashembe led the way with obvious caution. Then, rounding a block as big as a house that stood all by itself, he stopped altogether, indicating something ahead. I followed his finger to see a long, smoking surge of volcanic material moving ever so gently down the slope toward us.
"The magma," he said, and began to produce another collecting bottle.
I detained him. "Isn't it hot?"
"Certainly. But we have atotta suits. We would have been too hot long ago but for them. Temperature probably about forty of your centigrade system degrees." And leaving me to wonder over the statement, he was off with his bottle to get a sample of the gas from over the burning lava.
We turned back after that, guiding our course by means of Ashembe's "boshee." For myself I was quite ready to stop and take a prolonged rest. We had been traveling for something like five hours and had
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