Argosy, Vol. 1 (1882) — page 337: what you’re looking at

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

328 tongue. As it licked across his lips the jag of broken tin flashed redly in the glow, and we could hear it grate as his teeth closed. His head reached up to within forty yards of us as he swarmed against the cliff, and Garlicke aimed carefully for his eye. The bullet only grazed the unscarred eyebrow, giving it a curious uniformity with the other one. The brute merely blinked impatiently as the ball thudded on the shell-like lid, but did not twitch a muscle. As it splayed out its feet on the bank of loose stones, secking purchase to strain higher, the rubble gave way, and it rolled back with a thump upon its side. Its green belly shone a loathsome pink in the glare from above, and for a moment it lay prone, its great legs kicking con- vulsively. Then with an effort it righted itself and crawled sulkily away to resume its sentinelship at the. cliff foot. It con- tinued to ramble to and frounceasingly, casting ever greedy eyes at us, the hid- cous snout lifted to the breeze, the long tongue lolling from between the yellow teeth. Down in the hollow a growing sheet of water spread. On it the ship floated lopsided and aimlessly. Long widen- ing ripples welled from where the cleft was submerged, and a steam cloud was hazy upon the surface. The hull was all untrue upon its keel with the shifting of the bailast, and as the ripples swung her, drifted in slow circles. With her lost topmast she looked like nothing so much as a wounded wild duck. The fire glow gave the increasing water the effect of blood issuing from a wound in the bosom of earth. On it were reflected crimson throbs from the arch of ruddy fog; they were as pulses across an opened vein. Another quiver rocked our pyramid of granite, and the glacier was riven across. The following roar gushed down to us deafeningly. The lane showed dark and mysterious across the THE ARGOSY. ice field, clean cut as by an axe blow, and this new made canyon ran with scarce an obstacle nearly to the foot of our refuge. We seemed to get a vision swift and fleeting as a lightning flash, of the hidden mysteries of the ice. [ could have declared I saw the yel- low facade of the buried temple show up against a black background of rock. Then as the flying lava sank back again into the bath of fire, darkness closed over this half seen apparition. ‘ QOnceagain the red bar glowed across the dip in the crater brim. For one tense moiment it hovered, and then crashed down upon its dying forerun- ner, covering it anew with living fire. Along this smoothed path it rushed headlong; leaped down from the lava crest upon the stones, and rolled with measured grandeur down the groove the earthquake had riven. Blocks of ice, fallen from the glacier sides, lay in its course and were swallowed in a mo- ment. Like the roar of a bursting shell the steam bubbles smashed to the surface, and floated up in white circling clouds to lose themselves in the fog above. Unhalting the torrent ran, ingulfing all before it; stones, ice and the rock itself disappeared. Then in slow growing blackness it stayed, sank and died, even as its pre- decessor. But this time the wave reached to the end of the fissure, and the heat of it beat up to us, lapping us in a bath of sultry, stifling air. The Beast shifted his sentry walk un- easily, stretching out his neck towards ' the lava wall, and snouting at the warm draft suspiciously. For a moment he seemed to waver. His nostrils dilated curiously. Then he glanced towards the rising lake, and we thought he would give over his seeking for our lives. As he hesitated, now looking lake- wards, now peering up to us, another crash resounded from the mountain. Like the tearing of a sheet of paper, the glacier canyon split further shore- wards and opened beneath his very feet. GOH GOOO SS CO