WE LEAP.
WE passed through the caves without trouble, but when we came to the slope of the inverted cone two difficulties stared us in the face.The first of these was the laborious nature of the ascent, and the next the extreme difficulty of finding our way.Indeed, had it not been for the mental notes that I had fortunately taken of the shape of various rocks, etc., I am sure that we never should have managed it at all, but have wandered about in the dreadful womb of the volcanofor I suppose it must once have been something of the sortuntil we died of exhaustion and despair.As it was we went wrong several times, and once nearly fell into a huge crack or crevasse.It was terrible work creeping about in the dense gloom and awful stillness from boulder to boulder, and examining it by the feeble light of the lamps to see if I could recognize its shape.We rarely spoke, our hearts were too heavy for speech, we simply stumbled about falling sometimes and cutting ourselves, in a rather dogged sort of way.The fact was that our spirits were utterly crushed, and we did not greatly care what happened to us.Only we felt bound to try and save our lives while we could, and, indeed, a natural instinct prompted us to it.So for some three or four hours, Ishould thinkI cannot tell exactly how long, for we had no watch left that would gowe blundered on.
During the last two hours we were completely lost, and I began to fear that we had got into the funnel of some subsidiary cone, when at last I suddenly recognized a very large rock which we had passed in descending but a little way from the top.It is a marvel that I should have recognized it, and, indeed, we had already passed it going at right angles to the proper path, when something about it struck me, and Iturned back and examined it in an idle sort of way, and, as it happened, this proved our salvation.