Argosy, Vol. 1 (1882) — page 133: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

124 At the same moment we were aware that the rocks were grinding upon the ship with a scissors-like movement, though happily they did not close. Had they done so we should have been nipped in their jaws with a very remote chance of escape. We also realized that the smoke cloud, which had risen and grown thin- ner during the day, was expanding and thickening, making the twilight of the short Antarctic night a very business- like gloom. We slipped across the gangways hur- riedly, and grouped ourselves upon the rocks. A low rumble came creeping across the empty silences of the glacier. It rolled up to us like the muffled groan- ing of a buried army. | We could fancy that the tombed city of long ago was sending out its desper- ate call for succor. The rocks shook beneath us. The gravel danced and pattered about our feet. We staggered, catching at one an- other aimlessly. Gwen, who was next me, tripped comfortably into my arms, where I held her with much content, both of us swaying absurdly. The dull roar became abruptly a sharp crash. The ground rippled and worked horribly, and we were flung to earth, grasping at the rolling boulders. The cleft beneath the ship yawned like some Titanic mouth. As the remaining hawser parted, the keel sank further into the opening with a thud, and the stones we had built up beneath it went clattering down into the abyss. Not ten yards from where Gwen and I fell abroad, and not two feet from where Lessaution groveled, a fissure Opened and shut with a snap as of teeth. The professor in fact declared that for one hair raising moment he looked into the very deepest fastnesses of death. As the gap closed, a puff of sulphur- ous steam was shot into the air. It clouded over us, making us cough. A clatter of ice and falling water came from the glacier; a splinter or two fell THE ARGOSY. - from the peak. Then, suddenly as came the upheaval, quiet returned and fell ‘upon the scene. From that moment, though, the darkness was riven. The mushroom- like pall of smoke now hung over us rosy red from fires that burned beneath it in the lap of the hill. The crimson light flared down into the empty lake basin, reflecting back luridly from the rocks. A small fine rain of soot, gray and woolly, began to fall; it got into our eyes and nostrils, and set us sneezing and winking prodigiously. Then in trembling and with hopelessness in our hearts we climbed the slopes to the cliff tops, filled with desolation in that the earth having turned traitor, we had but the sea to look to. How vainly we night look and how long, we knew but too well. The red glow wavered upon crestless surges that moved slowly upon the crags. Far out to sea the islands of the first eruption showed black and shat- tered dim outlines in the cinder rain. This fell mercilessly on floe and berg, blackening them to filthy patches upon the rosy sea. Far away we could still see the gleam of moonlight upon the outer ocean, peaceful and silvered against the blood-like hue of the landward waters. From above us came the boom of ir- regular explosions, and gray tufts of smoke shot up into the darkness. Here and there crimson splashes of flame cut the smoke tower. They were spouts of molten stone, the slag of that mighty furnace. The snap and hiss as these fell upon the glacier was like the overboiling of some stupendous kettle. My eyes were seared with unrest in this hopelessness of sea and land. I turned them upon Gwen, who stood beside me, to give them comfort. She had a lace shaw! about her head and arched over her face, shading it from the steady drizzle of cinders. These lay upon the few unprotected curls that flecked her forehead, Fiving CONMUCGLOIOCO SS) eo