In
the fading light I marked the red, malignant glow of a fissure newly
broken out in the side of the ragged cone, from which came a thin,
white trickle of lava.
There was no sign of Leavitt, although the _Sylph_ must have been
visible to him for several hours, obviously making for the island. I
fancied that he must have been unusually absorbed in the vagaries of
his beloved volcano. Otherwise he would have wondered what was
bringing us back again and his tall figure in shabby white drill
would have greeted us from the shore. Instead, there confronted us
only the belt of dark, matted green girdling the huge bulk of
Lakalatcha which soared skyward, sinister, mysterious, eternal.
In the brief twilight the shore vanished into dim obscurity.
Miss Stanleigh, who for the last hour had been standing by the rail,
silently watching the island, at last spoke to me over her shoulder:
"Is it far inland--the place? Will it be difficult to find in the
dark?"
Her question staggered me, for she was clearly bent on seeking out
Leavitt at once. A strange calmness overlay her. She paid no heed to
Lakalatcha's gigantic, smoke-belching cone, but, with fingers
gripping the rail, scanned the forbidding and inscrutable forest,
behind which lay the answer to her torturing doubt.
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