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CHAPTER VIII

THE LEDGE OF DEATH

I suppose that Leith was not far wrong when he gave that place the credit of being the most wonderful spot in Polynesia.  None of us felt inclined to contradict him as we stood near the lip of the crater and gazed into it.  The thing appalled us.  It looked as if some fiend had bored it between those barriers of black rock as a trap for man and beast.  The entire inner walls, probably from the action of intense heat upon a peculiar kind of rock, were of a bright vermilion near the top, gradually changing into darker shades as the eye followed them deeper and deeper till the outline was lost in the depths of the mighty cauldron.  The inky clouds, which seemed to heave like black masses of cotton wool far down in the abyss, left the imagination to perform acrobatic feats as it attempted to picture the possible depths that lay below.  The thing was weird, terrible, fear-inspiring.  It looked like a mighty crucible in which infernal things might have been manufactured in the days when the world was taking shape.

The rays of the westering sun beat upon the sides directly opposite our point of observation, and the colours seemed to leap from the rock.  It glowed in a manner that was indescribable.  Sudden flashes came from it as if the vermilion mass was studded with blazing carbuncles, but the fascinating beauty of the part that was exposed to the rays was in violent contrast to the cold depths where the mind pictured a body falling through leagues of space.

For about five minutes no one spoke.  The awful suddenness with which the thing had appeared in our path throttled conversation.  An inner self connected the pit with the singular feeling of depression which had gripped us the moment we landed upon the island, and we stood breathless, wondering stupidly how we had sensed the vermilion-lined horror into which the path led.

It was the Professor who broke the silence.  The momentary awe which he experienced when the strange freak of nature sprang up before his eyes was dispelled by the vanity which prompted him to air his knowledge concerning the cause of the vivid colours which seemed to radiate from the walls.  He prattled upon the effect of heat upon minerals till he made us dizzy, and Holman broke in upon his chatter with a question that he fired point blank at Leith.

“But what did we climb up here for?” asked the youngster.  “Did we come for the view alone?”

Leith grinned as he surveyed the questioner.  “No, we didn’t come for the view,” he answered.  “It happens to be on the way to our destination.”

Holman looked around at the basalt walls that hemmed us in on both sides, and then glanced at the pit in front.

“But we can go no farther,” he said.

Leith’s smile spread across his ugly flat face.  “You are too young to know everything,” he sneered.