Page:Amazing Stories Volume 01 Number 04.djvu/86

374 worth while to have left the interior of a volcano and remain here to receive a huge piece of rock upon one's head. Let us carefully descend the mountain and discover the real state of the case. To confess the truth, I am dying of hunger and thirst."

Decidedly the Professor had ceased to be a truly reflective character. For myself, forgetting all my necessities, ignoring my fatigues and sufferings, I should have remained still for several hours longer—but it was necessary to follow my companions.

HE slope of the volcano was very steep and slippery; we slid over piles of ashes, avoiding the streams of hot lava which glided about like fiery serpents. Still, while we were advancing, I spoke with extreme volubility, for my imagination was too full not to explode in words, "We are in Asia!" I exclaimed; "we are on the coast of India, in the great Malay islands in the center of Oceana. We have crossed the one half of the globe to come out right at the antipodes of Europe!"

"But the compass!" exclaimed my uncle; "explain that to me!"

"Yes—the compass," I said, with considerable hesitation. "I grant that is a difficulty. According to it, we have always been going northward."

"Then it lied."

"Hem—to say it lied is rather a harsh word," was my answer.

"Then we are at the north pole"

"The pole—no—well—well, I give it up," was my reply. The plain truth was, that there was no explanation possible. I could make nothing of it. All the while we were approaching this beautiful verdure, hunger and thirst tormented me fearfully. Happily, after two long hours' march, a beautiful country spread out before us, covered by olives, pomegranates, and vines, which appeared to belong to anybody and everybody. In the state of destitution into which we had fallen, we were not particular to a grape.

What delight it was to press these delicious fruits to our lips, and to bite at grapes and pomegranates fresh from the bough. Not far off, near some fresh and mossy grass, under the delicious shade of some trees, I discovered a spring of fresh water, into which we voluptuously plunged our faces, hands and feet.

While we were all giving way to the delights of new-found pleasures, a little child appeared between two tufted olive trees. "Ah," cried I, "an inhabitant of this happy country."

The little fellow was poorly dressed, weak and suffering, and appeared terribly alarmed at our appearance. Half-naked, with tangled, matted and ragged beards, we did look supremely ill-favored; and unless the country was a bandit land, we were not unlikely to alarm the inhabitants!

Just as the boy was about to take to his heels, Hans ran after him, and brought him back, despite his cries and kicks. My uncle tried to look as gentle as possible, and then spoke in German. "What is the name of this mountain, my friend?"

The child made no reply.

"Good," said my uncle, with a very positive air of conviction, "we are not in Germany." He then made the same demand in English, of which he was an excellent scholar.

The child shook its head and made no reply.

"Is he dumb?" cried the Professor, who was rather proud of his polyglot knowledge of languages, and making the same demand in French. The boy only stared in his face.

"I must perforce try him in Italian," said my uncle, with a shrug. "Dove siamo?"

"Yes, tell me where we are?" I added, impatiently and eagerly.

Again the boy remained silent.

Y fine fellow, do you or do you not mean to speak?" cried my uncle, who began to get angry. He shook him and spoke another dialect of the Italian language. "Come si chiama questa isola?"—what is the name of this island?

"Stromboli," replied the rickety little shepherd, dashing away from Hans and disappearing in the olive groves.

Stromboli! What effect on the imagination did these few words produce! We were in the center of the Mediterranean; amid the Eastern archipelago of mythological memory; in the ancient Strongylos, where Æolus kept the wind and the tempest chained up. And those blue mountains, which rose towards the rising of the sun, were the mountains of Calabria. And that mighty volcano which rose on the southern horizon was Etna, the fierce and celebrated Etna!

"Stromboli! Stromboli!" I repeated to myself. My uncle played a regular accompaniment to my gestures and words. We were singing together like an ancient chorus. Ah—what a journey—what a marvelous and extraordinary journey! Here we had entered the earth by one volcano, and we had come out by another. And this other was situated more than twelve hundred leagues from Sneffels, from that drear country of Iceland cast away on the confines of the earth. The wondrous chances of this expedition had transported us to the most harmonious and beautiful of earthly lands.

After a delicious repast of fruits and fresh water, we again continued our journey in order to reach the port of Stromboli. To say how we had reached the island would scarcely have been prudent. The superstitious character of the Italians would have been at work, and we should have been called demons vomited from the infernal regions. It was therefore necessary to pass for humble and unfortunate shipwrecked travelers. It was certainly less striking and romantic, but it was decidedly safer.

" [sic]As we advanced, I could hear my worthy uncle muttering to himself—"But the compass. The compass most certainly marked north. This is a fact I cannot explain in any way."

"Well, the fact is," said I, with an air of disdain, "we must not explain anything. It will be much more easy."

"I should like to see a professor of the Johanneum Institution, who is unable to explain a cosmic phenomenon—it would indeed be strange." And speaking thus; my uncle, half-naked, his leathern purse round his loins, and his spectacles upon his