charter makes a pilgrimage to the craters of pelée—one last day devoted to the spirit of old letters

charter left the palms early to join his guide at the wine-shop. he had kept apart from peter stock for two reasons. the old capitalist easily could have been tempted to accompany him. personally, charter did not consider a strong element of danger, and a glimpse into the volcano's mouth would give him a grasp and handling of the throes of a sick world, around which all natural phenomena would assume thereafter an admirable repression. to peter stock it would be an adventure, merely. more than all this, he wanted to go to the mountain alone. it was the skylark's day; and for this reason, he hurried out of the palms and down to the city without breakfast.... a last look from the morne, as it dipped into the rue victor hugo—at a certain upper window of the plantation-house, where it seemed he was leaving all the bright valiant prodigies of the future. he turned resolutely toward pelée—but the skylark's song grew fainter behind.

pere rabeaut's interest in the venture continued to delight him. procuring a companion was no common favor, since inquiries in the town proved that the regular guides were in abject dread of approaching the monster now. soronia, pere rabeaut, and his new servant awaited him in the rue rivoli. the latter was a huge creole, of gloomy visage. they would not find any one to accompany them in the lower part of the city, he said, as the fear there was greater than ever since the guerin disaster. in morne rouge, however, they would doubtless be able to procure mules, food, and other servants if necessary, for a day's trip to the craters. all of which appeared reasonable to charter, though he wondered again at the vital interest of pere rabeaut, and the general tension of the starting.

the two passed down through the city, and into the crowd of the market-place, where a blithesome little drama unfolded. peter stock had apparently been talking to the people about their volcano, urging them, no doubt, to take the advice of father fontanel and flee to fort de france, when he had perceived m. mondet passing in his carriage. charter saw his friend dart quickly from the crowd and seize the bridle. despite the protestations of the driver, the capitalist drew the vehicle into view of all. his face was red with the heat and ashine with laughter and perspiration. alarm and merriment mingled in the native throng. all eyes followed the towering figure of the american who now swung open the door of the carriage and bowed low to m. mondet.

"this, dear friends," peter stock announced, as one would produce a rabbit from a silk hat,—"this, you all perceive, is your little editor of les colonies. is he not bright and clean and pretty? he is very fond of american humor. see how the little editor laughs!"

m. mondet's smile was yellowish-gray and of sickly contour. his article relative to the american appealed to him now entirely stripped of the humor with which it was fraught a few days before, as he had composed it in the inner of inner-offices. this demon of crackling french and restless hands would stop at nothing. m. mondet pictured himself being picked up for dead presently. as the blow did not fall on the instant, the sorry thought tried him that he was to be played with before being dispatched.

"this is the man who tells you that saint pierre is in no danger—who scoffs at those who have already gone—who inquires in his paper, 'where on the island could a more secure place than saint pierre be found in the event of an earthquake visitation?' m. mondet advises us to flee with all dispatch to the live craters of a volcano to escape his hypothetical earthquake." peter stock was now holding up the frenchman's arm, as a referee upraises the whip of a winning fighter. "he says there's no more peril from pelée than from an old man shaking ashes out of his pipe. i proposed to wager my ship against m. mondet's rolled-top desk that he was wrong, but there was a difficulty in the way. do you not see, my friends of saint pierre, that, if i won the wager, i should not be able to distinguish between m. mondet's rolled-top desk and m. mondet's cigarette case in the ruins of the city——"

there had been a steady growling from the mountain.

"ah!" stock exclaimed after a pause, "pelée speaks again! 'i will repay—verily, i will repay!' growls the monster. let it be so, then, friends of mine. i will turn over my little account to the big fire-eater yonder who will collect all debts. i tell you, we who tarry too long will be buying political extras and last editions in hell from this bit of a newspaper man!"

charter laughingly turned away to avoid being seen, just as m. mondet was chucked like a large, soft bundle into the seat of his carriage and the door slammed forcibly, corking whatever wrath appertained. in any of the red-blooded zones, a foreigner who performed such antics at the expense of a portly and respected citizen would have encountered a quietus quick and blasting, but the people of martinique are not swift to anger nor forward in reprisal.

charter's physical energy was imperious, but the numbness of his scalp was a pregnant warning against the perils of heat. there were moments in which his mind moved in a light, irresponsible fashion, as if obsessed at quick intervals, one after another, by mad kings who dared anything, and whom no one dared refuse. somehow his brain contrived with striking artifices to keep the wyndam-skylark conflict in the background; yet, as often as he became aware of old vulcan muttering his agonies ahead, just so often did the reality rise that the meaning and direction of his life was gone, if he was not to see again the woman at the palms.

jacques, his guide, followed in sullen silence. they crossed the roxelane, and presently were ascending toward morne rouge. saint pierre was just still enough now to act like a vast sounding-board. remote voices reached them, even from the harbor-front to the left, and from shut shops everywhere.... it was nearly mid-day, when he rode out from morne rouge, with three more companions.

the ash-hung valley was far behind, and charter drank deeply of the clean, east wind from the atlantic. there was a rush of bitterness, too, because the woman was not there to share these priceless volumes of sunlit vitality. all the impetus of enterprise was needed now to turn the point of conflict, and force it into the background again.... they pushed through ajoupa boullion to the gorge of the falaise, the northward bank of which marked the trail which jacques chose to the summit.

and now they moved upward in the midst of the old glory of martinique. the brisk trades blowing evenly in the heights, wiped the eastern slope of the mountain clear of stone-dust and whipped the blasts of sulphur down into the valley toward the shore. green lakes of cane filled the valleys behind, and groves of cocoa-palms, so distant and so orderly that they looked like a city garden set with hen and chickens.... northward, through the rifts, glistened the sea, steel-blue and cool. before them rose the vast, green-clad mass of the mountain, its corona dim with smoke and lashed by storm. down in the southwest lay the ghastly pall, the hidden, tortured city, tranced under the cobra-head of the volcano and already laved in its poison.

the trail became very steep at two thousand feet, and this fact, together with the back-thresh of the summit disturbance, forced charter to abandon the animals. it transpired that two of the three later guides felt it their duty, at this point, to stay behind with the mules. a little later, when the growling from the prone, upturned face of the monster suddenly arose to a roar that twisted the flesh and outraged the senses of man, charter looked back and found that only one native was faltering behind, instead of two. and this one was jacques, of the savage eyes. pere rabeaut was praised again.

fascination for the dying thing took hold of him now and drew him on. charter was little conscious of fear for his life, but of a fixed terror lest he should be unable to go on. he found himself tearing up a handkerchief and stuffing the shreds in his ears to deaden the hideous vibrations. with the linen remaining, he filled his mouth, shutting his jaws together upon it, as the wheels of a wagon are blocked on an incline.

the titanic disorder placated his own. he became unconscious of passing time. from the contour of the slope, remembered from a past visit, he was aware of nearing the lac des palmists, which marked the summit-level. yet changes, violent changes, were everywhere evidenced. the shoulder of the mountain was smeared with a crust of ash and seamed with fresh scars. the crust was made by the dry, whirling winds playing upon the paste formed of stone-dust and condensed steam. the clicking whir, like a clap of wings, heard at intervals, accounted for the scars. bombs of rock were being hurled from the great tubes. here he shouted to jacques to stay behind; that he would be back in a few moments. there was a nod of assent from the evil head.

that he was in the range of a raking volcano-fire impressed with a sort of laughing awe this ant clinging to the beard of a giant. up, knees and hands, now, he crawled—up over the throbbing chin, to the black, pounded lip of the monster. out of the old lake coiled the furious tower of steam and rock-dust which mushroomed in high heaven, like a primal nebula from which worlds are made. it was this which fell upon the city. pockets of gas exploded in the heights, rending the periphery, as the veil of the temple was rent. only this horrible torrent spreading over saint pierre to witness, but sounds not meant for the ear of man, sounds which seemed to saw his skull in twain—the thundering engines of a planet.

the rocky rim of the lake was hot to his hands and knees, but a moment more he lingered. a thought in his brain held him there with thrilling bands. it was only a plaything of mind—a vagary of altitude and immensity. "did ever the body of a man clog the crater of a live volcano?" was his irreverent query. "did ever suicidal genius conceive of corrupting such majesty of force with his pygmy purpose?"

there he lay, sprawled at the edge of the universal mystery, at the secret-entrance to the chamber of earth's dynamos. the edge of the pit shook with the frightful work going on below, yet he was not slain. the torrent burst past and upward with a southward inclination, clean as a missing bullet. the bombs of rock canted out from sheer weight and fell behind. that which he comprehended—although his eyes saw only the gray, thundering cataclysm—was never before imagined in the mind of man.

the gray blackened. the roar dwindled, and his senses reeled. with a rush of saliva, the linen dropped from his open mouth. charter was sure there was a gaping cleft in his skull, for he could feel the air blowing in and out, cold and colder. he tried to lift his hands to cover the sensitive wound, but they groped in vain for his head. with the icy draughts of air, he seemed to hear faintly his name falling upon bare ganglia. for a second he feared that the lower part of his body would not respond; that he was uncoupled like a beast whose spine is broken.... it was only a momentary overcoming of the gas, or altitude, or the dreadful disorder, or all three. yet he knew how he must turn back if he lived.... his name was called again. he thought it was the reaper, calling forth his ghost.

"quentin charter! quentin charter!"

then he saw the wyndam woman on the veranda of the palms, her face white with agony, her eyes straining toward him.... turning hastily—he missed death in a savage, sordid reality. jacques had crept upon him, a maniac in his eyes, dog's slaver on his lips. a rock twice as large as his head was upraised in both arms. with a muscular spasm one knows in a dream, charter's whole body united in a spring to the side—escaping the rock. jacques turned and fled like a goat, leaping from level to level.

charter managed to follow. he felt weak and ill for the time, as though pelée had punished him for peering into matters which nature does not thank man for endeavoring to understand.... the three natives pressed about him far down on the slope. jacques had vanished. the sun was sinking seaward. charter mounted his mule, turning the recent incident over in his mind for the manieth time. his first thought had been that the indescribable gripping of the mountain had turned mad a decent servant, but this did not stand when he recalled how pere rabeaut had importuned him to accept jacques, and how the latter had fled from his failure. yet, so far as he could see, there was no reason in the world why a conspiracy to murder him should have origin in the little wine-shop of rue rivoli. it was all baffling even at first, that a rock had been chosen, when a knife or a pistol would have been effective. this latter, he explained presently. there was a possibility of his body being found; a smashed head would fall to the blame of pere pelée, who was casting bombs of rock upon the slopes; while a knife or a bullet-wound on his body would start the hounds indeed.

he rode down the winding trail apart from the guides. darkness was beginning, and the lights of ajoupa boullion showed ahead. the mountain carried on a frightful drumming behind. coiling masses of volcanic spume, miles above the craters, generated their own fire; and lit in the flashes, looked like billows of boiling steel. charter rode upon sheer nerve—nerve at which men had often wondered. at length a full-rigged thought sprang into his mind, which had known but the passing of hopeless derelicts since the first moment of descent. it was she who had called to save him. the woman of flesh had become a vision indeed. the little island mule felt the heel that moment.... charter turned back to the red moiled sky—a rolling, roaring hades in the north.

"i can't help it, skylark," he murmured, "if you will merge into this woman. she may never know that a man fled from her to the mountain to-day, and is hurrying back—as to the source of all beauty!... charter, charter, your thoughts are boiling over——"

he rode into the streets of morne rouge, so over-crowded now with the frightened from the lower city, that many were huddled upon the highway where they would be forced to sleep. here he paid the three guides, but retained his mule.... on the down trail again, he re-entered the bank of falling ash and the sulphurous desolation. evil as it was, the taint brought a sense of proximity to the morne and the palms. saint pierre was dark and harrowingly still under the throbbing volcano. the hoof-beats of the mule were muffled in ash, as if he pounded along a sandy beach. often a rousing fetor reached the nostrils of the rider, above the drying, cutting vapor from pelée, and the little beast shied and snorted at untoward humps on the highway. war and pestilence, seemingly, had stalked through saint pierre that day and a winter storm had tried to cover the aftermath.... he passed through rue rivoli, but was far too eager to reach the palms to stop at the wine-shop. the ugly mystery there could be penetrated afterward. downward, he turned toward the next terrace, where the solitary figure of a woman confronted him.

"mr. charter!" she cried. "and—you are able to ride?"

"why, what do you mean, miss wyndam?" he said, swiftly dismounting. "what are you doing 'way up here alone—in this dreadful suffocation?"

"i was looking for a little stone wine-shop——" she checked herself, a scroll of horrors spreading open in her brain.

"it's just a little way back," he said, in a repressed tone. "i have an errand there, too. shall i show you?"

"no," she answered shuddering. "i'll walk with you back to the palms. i must think.... oh, let us hurry!"

he lifted her to the saddle, and took the bridle-rein.