Altogether the best I could do was to lie still,see my shot-gun handy,and wait for the explosion.But it was a solemn kind of a business.The blackness of the night was like solid;the only thing you could see was the nasty bogy glimmer of the dead wood,and that showed you nothing but itself;and as for sounds,Istretched my ears till I thought I could have heard the match burn in the tunnel,and that bush was as silent as a coffin.Now and then there was a bit of a crack;but whether it was near or far,whether it was Case stubbing his toes within a few yards of me,or a tree breaking miles away,I knew no more than the babe unborn.
And then,all of a sudden,Vesuvius went off.It was a long time coming;but when it came (though I say it that shouldn't)no man could ask to see a better.At first it was just a son of a gun of a row,and a spout of fire,and the wood lighted up so that you could see to read.And then the trouble began.Uma and I were half buried under a wagonful of earth,and glad it was no worse,for one of the rocks at the entrance of the tunnel was fired clean into the air,fell within a couple of fathoms of where we lay,and bounded over the edge of the hill,and went pounding down into the next valley.I saw I had rather undercalculated our distance,or over-done the dynamite and powder,which you please.
And presently I saw I had made another slip.The noise of the thing began to die off,shaking the island;the dazzle was over;and yet the night didn't come back the way I expected.For the whole wood was scattered with red coals and brands from the explosion;they were all round me on the flat;some had fallen below in the valley,and some stuck and flared in the tree-tops.Ihad no fear of fire,for these forests are too wet to kindle.But the trouble was that the place was all lit up-not very bright,but good enough to get a shot by;and the way the coals were scattered,it was just as likely Case might have the advantage as myself.Ilooked all round for his white face,you may be sure;but there was not a sign of him.As for Uma,the life seemed to have been knocked right out of her by the bang and blaze of it.