Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 61.djvu/363

Rh on Pelée's slopes. But look! What are those steam-jets doing? There were one or two along the sea-front when we landed, but now there are eight, ten, twenty, and they are spurting higher all over the slope. Dr. Church was standing near me and saw me watching them. We did not either of us like the look of it. Now there were about forty, like so many ghostly locomotives that had run out from their tunnels in the volcano roundhouse and were all getting up steam at once. White-coated officers and men of science were to be seen in groups here

and there far away among the ruins and on the higher walls and slopes, but they were under the cliffs out of sight of Mont Pelée. We looked towards the Potomac; yes, she had seen it too, and a white steam-jet from her preceded the sharp blast of her fog-horn as she sent out a quick-repeated summons for all to return at once. Pell-mell they came tumbling to the water front and there was always someone else who had not turned up yet; the white-coated jackies were in place and the boats started from the shore. No sooner were they clear of the