Fire Island | Page 9

with thankfulness, and a mist came before his eyes, as he felt how gloriously beautiful the world seemed, after the black darkness and horrors through which he had passed.
Then everything was matter-of-fact and ordinary again, for a voice said,--"Hullo! you up? Thought I was first."
"You, Drew? I say, look here." Sylvester Drew, botanist of the little expedition, shaded his eyes from the horizontal sunbeams, and looked round over the hatchway as he stood beside his companion, and kept on uttering disconnected words,--"Beautiful--grand--Paradise--thank God!" By one impulse they stepped on deck and went to the bulwarks, to stand there and look around, astounded at the change.
From where they had obtained their first glimpse of their surroundings they only saw the higher ground; now they were looking upon the level--a scene of devastation.
For they were both gazing upon the track of the earthquake wave, and all around them trees were lying torn-up by the roots, battered and stripped of their leafage, some piled in inextricable confusion, others half buried in mud. Some again had soft white coral sand heaped over them. Here, the surface had been swept bare to the dark rock which formed the base of the island or continent upon which they had been cast; there, mud lay in slimy waves, some of which were being disturbed at the surface by something living writhing its way through the liquid soil.
"Might have given a fellow a call," said a voice, and Panton came up to them. "You fellows are as bad as schoolboys; must have first turn."
"Never thought of calling you," said Drew.
"Not surprised at you," said Panton to Oliver Lane, "you are only a schoolboy yet; but you might have called me, Drew."
"Don't take any notice, Oliver, lad," said Drew. "Panton always goes badly till he has been oiled by his breakfast."
"My word!" cried Panton, as he grasped the scene around them. "Look here, Drew! Look at the earth bared to its very bones. Volcanic. Look at the tufa. That's basalt there, and look where the great blocks of coral are lying. Why, they must have been swept in by the wave."
"Don't bother," said Drew. "I want to make out what those trees are in blossom. They must be--"
"Oh, bother your trees and flowers! Here, Oliver, lad, look at the great pieces of scoria and pumice. Why, that piece is smoking still. These must be some of the fragments we saw falling yesterday."
"Can't look," said Oliver, "I want to know what those birds are, and there's a great fish in that muddy pool yonder, and, if I'm not greatly mistaken, that's a snake. Here, quick! Look amongst those trees. There's a man--no, a boy--no. I see now; it's alive, and--yes--it's some kind of ape."
"Well, we can't go on fighting against each other, with every man for his own particular subject," said Drew, "we must take our turns. We've been cast on a perfect naturalist's paradise, with the world turned upside down, as if for our special advantage."
"Yes," said Panton; "we could not possibly have hit upon a place more full of tempting objects."
"But what about our exploration in New Guinea?" said Oliver.
"This may be the western end of that island," said Panton. "But where's the volcano that has caused all this mischief?"
"Yonder," said Oliver, pointing, "behind the cloud."
The others looked at a dense curtain of mist which rose from the earth, apparently to the skies, and hid everything in that quarter, the desolation extending apparently for a couple of miles in the direction of the curtain, beyond that the ground rose in a glorious slope of uninjured verdure, and then came the great cloud of mist or smoke shutting off the mountain, or whatever was beyond.
"But where is the sea?" said Oliver.
"All run down through a big hole into the earth, I say," said a deep voice. "Well, gentlemen, how are you?"
"Ah, Mr Rimmer, good morning," cried Oliver, shaking hands. "How are your hurts?"
"Oh, better my lad, and yours?"
"Only a bit stiff and achy. But who's to think of injuries in such a glorious place?"
"Glorious!" said the mate, screwing up his face. "Look about you. Everything's destroyed."
"Oh, yes," said Drew; "but in a month it will be all green again and as beautiful as ever!"
"Except my poor brig," said the mate. "Why, she's regularly planted here in the mud and sand, and, unless she strikes root and grows young vessels, she's done for."
"But where is the sea?" cried Oliver.
The mate looked round him and then pointed south-west.
"Yonder, if there is any," he said.
"How do you know?"
"Trees all standing in the other direction, and yes, there are others out that way," he said, pointing. "It's plain enough, the wave swept right across this low level. You can see how the trunks lie and how the rocks and the shells have been