Page:The land of enchantment (1907, Cassell).djvu/104

 “Right you are, Master Charles; but when your inside’s a-urging you on so that peck you must, you can’t afford to be particular as to ways and means. I give you my word, Master Charles, that snake was astonished when, peeping over, he clapped his eyes on yours truly. “Burr-r-r-r!’ says I. I was almost sorry for the poor reptile, for he turned pale with fright, and his tail shook so that I had difficulty in holding on. Howsomever, I’d no mind to linger, so I picked about a dozen cocoanuts as sharp as I could and reached the ground again in less than no time. Then I climbed some way up the hill in front of me and fell to on the cocoanuts. They were just lovely, and I managed to put away half-a-dozen of them; then I up anchor, and steered for the top of the hill, thinking that I should be able to ‘view the landscape o’er,’ as the poet says, and so get my bearings. It was such stiff work, however, that soon I had to pay out the anchor and sit down again. ‘Hullo!’ says I to myself, ‘what’s the matter with this here hill?’ for, come to touch the ground, it seemed to me rather hot! I wondered a spell, and then got under way and made another start. Up and up I goes, and by-and-by touches Mother Earth again. ‘Geewilikins!’ says I, ‘the ground’s a-getting hotter!’ Just then I claps my eyes on the top, which had been out of sight before, and I sees blue smoke a-curling upwards. ‘Shiver my timbers!’ says I, ‘it’s a burning mountain!’

“I put a reef or two in my sails, and steered a bit more careful, and after a longish cruise reached the top. ”I was well I was half-speed, or maybe I should have toppled headlong inside the mountain. The hole was big enough, in all conscience. Seeing as how I was there, I kept well to windward and peeped over the edge.”

“Oh, Ben,” said Charlie, “I shouldn’t have done that; I should just have scampered off as fast as ever I could!”

“Well, maybe you would, Master Charles, and small blame to you, when you'd seen the sight I saw!”

“Why, what did you see, Ben?”

“Fire, Master Charles, and plenty of it; but it wasn’t so much that as made me stare with all my eyes. Now, if you'll just overhaul your memory, Master Charles, you’ll call to mind the marks I told you I saw in the sand.”

“Yes, Ben, yes.”

“Well, then, now I saw them as made those marks, Master Charles, a-moving about in the fire.”