The girl listened a moment, and then started up. "I hear
voices--somewhere,"
"Voices?" I strained my ears for sounds other than the insistent
ferment of the great cone above our heads. "Perhaps Leavitt----"
"Why do you still call him Leavitt?"
"Then you're quite certain----" I began, but an involuntary
exclamation from her cut me short.
The light of Williams's lantern, emerging from behind the bamboo
palings, disclosed the burly form of the boatswain with a shrinking
Malay in tow. He was jabbering in his native tongue, with much
gesticulation of his thin arms, and going into contortions at every
dozen paces in a sort of pantomime to emphasize his words. Williams
urged him along unceremoniously to the steps of the veranda.
"Perhaps you can get the straight of this, Mr. Barnaby," said the
boatswain. "He swears that the flame-devil in the volcano has
swallowed his master alive."
The poor fellow seemed indeed in a state of complete funk. With his
thin legs quaking under him, he poured forth in Malay a crazed,
distorted tale. According to Wadakimba, Leavitt--or Farquharson, to
give him his real name--had awakened the high displeasure of the
flame-devil within the mountain. Had we not observed that the cone
was smoking furiously? And the dust and heavy taint of sulphur in
the air? Surely we could feel the very tremor of the ground under
our feet.
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