Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/259

 OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 19 was a wall of rock interposed between them and the ac complishment of their desire to land. In this last respect, Rancocus Island offered a shore very different from that of Vulcan s Peak. The first, in addition to the long, low point so often mentioned, had everywhere a beach of some sort or other; while, on the last, the waves of the Pacific rose and fell as against a precipice, marking their power merely by a slight discoloration of the iron-bound coast. Those superstitious and ignorant beings naturally would connect all these unusual circumstances with some super natural agencies ; and Heaton early gave it as his opinion that Waally, of whom he had some personal knowledge, was hesitating, and doubtful of the course he ought to pursue, on account of this feeling of superstition. When this opinion was expressed, the governor suggested the ex pediency of firing one of the carronades, under the suppo sition that the roar of the gun, and most especially the echo, of which there was one in particular that was truly terrific, might have the effect to frighten away the whole party. Heaton was in doubt about the result, for Waally and his people knew something of artillery, though of echoes they could not know anything at all. Nothing like an echo, or indeed a hill, was to be found in the low coral islands of their group, and the physical agents of producing such sounds were absolutely wanting among them. It might be that something like an echo had been heard at Rancocus Island, but it must have been of a very different calibre from that which Heaton and Mark were in the habit of making for the amusement of the females, by firing their fowling-pieces down the Stairs. As yet neither of the guns had been fired from the proper point, which was the outer battery, or that on the shelf of rock, though a very formidable roaring had been made by the report of the gun formerly fired, as an experiment to ascer tain how far it would command the entrance of the cove. After a good deal of discussion, it was decided to try the experiment, and Betts, who knew all about the means ne cessary to produce the greatest reverberations, was des patched to the shelf-battery with instructions to scale its gun, by pointing it along the cliff and making all the uproar he could. L_