CHAPTER XXVI

THE VOLCANO WAKES

Then began the hardest part of it all for the boys—the waiting part. There was no telling what time Ramirez and his men might take for the attack so that all they could expect to do was to keep a close guard upon the cave and—wait.

They thought constantly of the rest of the treasure which still lay in the hold of the sunken ship. If only they had been able to recover the remainder of those precious chests before they had learned of the new danger that threatened them!

Dick was for going ahead anyway on the chance that Ramirez would not attack that day. But the rest were all against such a wild plan.

“There is no use risking what treasure we have already—as well as our lives,” said Phil. “What’s to prevent Ramirez and his men from sneaking up while we were out there on the raft and barring our way back to shore? With the heavy odds against us, what chance would we have?”

“We’d have the choice,” Steve took up the argument, “of pitting our six men against their twenty or staying out on the raft to starve or be caught in one of the sudden storms that we have around here and drown—”

“Later to be eaten by the sharks,” finished Tom, gloomily, and at this even Dick seemed convinced that the part of wisdom would be to stick close to the shore.

All day long they kept guard, ready at the first sign of attack to make for the barricaded cave, thus more or less evening the odds against them.

They were confident of being able to rout the enemy. It was only the delay that worried.

“Why don’t they get busy?” cried Dick, pacing up and down, his hands shoved savagely in his pockets. “I can stand anything but this waiting game. If they don’t start something pretty soon, I’m going to take my gun and do a little war dance over to their part of the island all by myself if nobody else will come with me.”

“Like fun you are,” said Phil quietly. “We can’t leave the treasure unguarded. You know that.”

This seemed to give Dick pause but almost immediately he began his restless pacing up and down again.

“Then why don’t they get busy?” he demanded again, as though in some mysterious way the delay were all Phil’s fault.

“Probably,” Phil answered, his gaze fixed on the lowering mountain where it towered far above them, “they are taking it easy to-day. They naturally think that in this fine weather we’d be out hunting the rest of the treasure. Probably Ramirez or one of his buddies will be sneaking around this evening to see what we’ve got.”

“I suppose so,” returned Dick and then he followed the direction of Phil’s gaze, his eyes coming to rest on the dark cloud that hovered close above the mountain.

“The old boy looks pretty bad, doesn’t he?” Dick remarked, anxiously.

Phil nodded.

“Getting worse and worse all the time,” he said, adding with a grin as he drew his gaze down from the mountain, “Looks as if we were hedged in between two fires. We’ll have to be pretty spry on our feet if we don’t get burned by one or the other of them.”

“I’ll tell the world,” said Tom ruefully. He had come out of the cave just in time to hear Phil’s last sentence. “If old Ramirez doesn’t get us, the mountain will. Bimbo says that old boy is getting ready to spill a lot of lava on us.”

“Which old boy, Ramirez or the mountain?” asked Tom, trying to be funny and only getting a pitying stare for his pains.

“So Bimbo says we’re going to have an eruption, does he?” remarked Phil, adding softly, as though speaking to himself, “Well, a little while ago I wouldn’t have paid much attention to what Bimbo said. But now it’s different. He said there wasn’t any luck for us on this island, and I’m beginning to believe him.”

“How about the treasure?” asked Jack Benton and Phil turned on him with a grin.

“We didn’t find that on the island,” he reminded him. “We found it under the sea!”

And so the long hot day wore on and nothing happened except that that menacing cloud over the mountain grew darker and darker. Toward the middle of the afternoon there came a slight earthquake shock, not severe enough to cause them any great alarm. Just the same it might be noticed that they gazed oftener and more anxiously at the threatening mountain.

Needless to wish now as they had wished so many times before that they had not lost their good ship on the treacherous rocks. If they had any kind of water-tight craft, large enough for them to set sail in, it would be so easy to outwit Ramirez and his gang now that they knew of his villainous plans. They could not recover the rest of the treasure, perhaps, but they could at least make sure of what they had.

Poor Bimbo was anything but happy. Nearly all the day he hugged the cave as though that were his only refuge. Once or twice he ventured forth, and on those occasions he seemed to be doing his best to keep his eyes from wandering to the lowering mountain and the cloud of smoke that hung low above it. Then, as though drawn by a magnet, his gaze would come round to it and with an ejaculation of terror he would duck for the cave once more.

The boys, watching him, laughed, even while his fright made them uneasy.

“I believe he’s more afraid of that mountain than he is of Ramirez and all his gang,” said Jack Benton on one of these occasions. “Poor Bimbo. I’m afraid he won’t be much help to us when the need for action comes.”

“Well I don’t know about that,” Phil disagreed with him. “He wouldn’t be a bit of good with a rifle—I doubt if he would even know how to fire one—but when it comes to a knife or a club, he’ll come in mighty handy.”

“Well, we’ll see,” said Benton absently, and once more his eyes turned to the mountain.

“Phil,” he said, after a minute, “I believe Bimbo’s right. Have you noticed any change in that smoke cloud lately?”

Phil nodded gravely.

“It’s been spreading and growing blacker for a long while,” he said. “Something tells me that this island is going to be a pretty unhealthy place to live on before long.”

Jack Benton spread his hands in a helpless gesture.

“What are we going to do?” he asked.

At that moment, as though he had heard the question and were trying to supply the answer, Bimbo ventured forth from the cave once more and approached Phil. He kept glancing over his shoulder at the mountain continually and his teeth chattered as he made his proposition.

“Ah jes’ done think o’ somethin’, Marse Phil,” he said. “An’ Ah jes’ been wonderin’ why nobuddy haint thought o’ it afore. Dat radio stuff what yo’ all sets sech store by—Ah asks what good it am, Marse Phil, ef it don’ git us out o’ dis fix we’re in. Ef you kin talk over it, reckon dis yere’s de time to talk. Anyways, ’pears like to me, Marse Phil.”

It was a long speech for Bimbo, and at the end of it he drew a long breath, gazing at Phil with eager expectancy. Evidently he had expected his suggestion to be received with open arms.

An expression of dire disappointment spread over his black face as Phil slowly shook his head.

“We’ve thought of that, Bimbo,” he said. “But it won’t do to let outsiders in on this just now. If we should radio a ship for help, we would have to explain about the treasure, and that would never do. No, I guess we’ll have to stick it out for the present. We always have radio as a last resort, you know,” he added, by way of cheering the disconsolate Bimbo, as the latter turned slowly away.

“Anyways Ah done did the best Ah could,” he muttered. “Ef Ah had the workin’ o’ dat radio Ah wouldn’t be waitin’ for no las’ resort, nosir, not wiv dat dere mountain cuttin’ up pranks.”

But in spite of the heavy odds against them and the double danger in which they knew they stood the boys were firm in their decision not to radio for help, unless their position became absolutely desperate.

Unless Ramirez delayed his attack too long they were confident, with the aid of the barricaded cave that they could put their enemy to rout in spite of the difference in numbers. Then, the island once clean of Ramirez and his men, they could let shipwreck account for their presence on the island, meanwhile thinking up some plan for getting the treasure aboard without rousing the suspicion of their rescuers.

But that mountain! Blacker and blacker became the smoke cloud. As night fell, little tongues of flame could be seen shooting from the crater’s mouth, vivid streaks of light against the darkening sky. Through the earth shot sickening tremors, rocking the ground beneath their feet. The air was heavy and breathless and into it insidiously crept the smell of sulphur.

It seemed to the boys as if they could not breathe. They longed for a clean wind from the sea but none came to relieve them. It was as though all nature held itself in suspense, awaiting some tremendous climax, some terrific convulsion of its elements.

The boys waited, drawn close together, watching that ominous flickering of flame, fascinated, feeling as though they were under some sort of horrid spell, unable to drag their eyes away. Bimbo, crouched in a far corner of the cave was praying wildly.

It was long past dinner time, yet no one thought of eating. Who could think of food when they believed they were facing destruction?

How long they stood there, motionless, it would be hard to tell. Hours they must have been and yet to the boys, they passed like minutes.

The tremors of the earth became harder, more frequent, the heavy air became filled with the sickening sulphur smell. It was hot—hot. Their throats ached with the heat. The air was thick with flying particles—lava.

Phil touched the sleeve of his shirt wonderingly and looked at his fingers. They were covered with dust. He looked at his companions. They were covered with dust. He wanted to laugh, they looked so funny—like figures made out of dust. But something kept him from doing that. Perhaps it was the dryness of his throat.

His eyes came back to those darts of fire, higher now, flaming more vividly against the darker sky, gorgeous, soul-shaking.

Something reached out and touched his arm. He looked down and found it was Dick’s hand. He grasped it and the two looked at each other, silently. They didn’t speak. They didn’t need to speak. Their silence said more than words. In the hearts of both of them was the thought that perhaps they would not see another sunrise—.

“Look,” cried Steve, his voice sounding thin and strange. “The mountain—”

A liquid stream of fire shooting from the crater’s mouth straight into the heavens, a terrific jar that shook the island from end to end, great, new-made fissures, yawning horribly, a mass of molten lava raining down the mountain slope.

A second quake more awful than the first, a grinding, breaking noise as though the island sank into the sea. Thrown from his feet, Phil struck his head upon a stone.

“It’s—the end,” he muttered, and sank into oblivion.

Ages later he opened his eyes and looked into the fear-crazed ones of Bimbo. The darky was bathing the blood that flowed from the wound in his scalp. Behind him, in the light of the lantern, he saw the strained faces of his comrades.

“I don’ think you was killed, Marse Phil,” blubbered Bimbo. “You bleed like you was ram’ by a bull. Thank de Lord you’se alive, Marse Phil.”

Phil sat up, brushing Bimbo away impatiently. He was still dizzy and it was hard to think clearly.

“Is—the island—still here?” he asked, incredulously.

Jack Benton laughed shakily, bending over him.

“Yes and so are we—yet,” he said. “Are you well enough to stand, Phil?”

Phil found that he was and between them he walked to the door of the cave and out into the sultry night.

Everything was quiet, as though the tremendous spectacle had never been. Only now and again a flame shot out from the mouth of the crater, a promise of future destruction.

From within the cave came Bimbo’s mournful wail: “Ef we don’ git away from dis yere island we’ll all go to de bottom of de sea. Yassir, dats where we’re agwine.”

Phil turned his eyes from a new-made fissure yawning at his feet out to the limitless sea. The throbbing of the pain in his head seemed to keep time with the monotony of the waves as they pounded upon the shore.