The old chief came running to me, jabbering excitedly and gesticulating. He was so excited I couldn't understand what he was trying to say. But he pointed up at the mountain side and then down toward the lake. The vapor was lifting being blown aside by the breeze—and then I saw. Up on the side of the crater, where the bare cliff showed above the trees, a column of steam was roaring up from the pit where the Xinguays had disposed of the dead head-hunters. It must have been spouting for two hundred feet in the air, and every few moments it would die down a little and then burst up twice as far, carrying masses of stone and rocks with it. I knew what it meant. The old volcano was waking up—those 'quakes had disturbed its sleep—and at any time the whole valley might be blown sky-high carrying us with it. And when I turned to look at the lake I knew we didn’t have any time to spare if we were to get away before the eruption took place. That lake was a seething cauldron, a hissing, steaming, roaring crater. And it wasn't water that was boiling up in great bubbles that exploded with the detonations of heavy artillery. Not water but lava—incandescent, molten lava!
I turned to warn the chief to flee, but he had gone. I shouted to the Indians to run for their lives, but they paid no attention, even if they heard me, which I doubt. They were all hurrying toward the Council House, carrying their weapons, the men struggling to put on their masks and leaf cloaks. Poor superstitious fools! Suddenly faced with danger they were turning to the one means of defense. They were trusting to the guardian god to save them; trusting to their Death Drum to destroy this new enemy, this devil who menaced them!
Madly I dashed to my hut. I seized my rifle, grabbed up my clothes and machete, and raced for the jungle-covered slopes beyond the village. There had been no time to hunt for food; to have attempted to carry any load would have been suicidal. But I never gave that matter a thought. Deadly peril, danger of imminent death, spurred me on. Behind me I could hear the ever increasing thunder of the exploding lava, the roar of the escaping steam, and, through the bedlam of sound, the throbbing, pulsating whining note of the Death-Drum, that even in the face of greater dangers sent chills of horror along my spine.
By merest chance I had chosen the easiest way up the side of the crater, for I had raced blindly in the direction farthest from the ever increasing volcanic activity. But it was hard enough going even at the best, and driven by terror as I was I seemed to barely crawl up the jungle-covered slope. It was like a nightmare—one of those fearful dreams when one strives to rush from some awful peril and finds oneself barely able to move, held back by some invisible force, compelled to drag oneself an inch at a time toward safety.
Hemmed in by dense forest I could see nothing of what was taking place. But I could hear. The air fairly trembled to the thunder of the volcano's pent-up forces suddenly released. And as the sharp crackle or rifle fire cuts through the roar of cannonading, as the shrill notes of a piccolo are heard through the deep tones of the basso, so through that thunder of sound that shook the earth and caused the very trees to tremble, I could hear the deadly note of the Death-Drum, as the poor, ignorant, helpless savages sought to destroy the devil that threatened them, sublime in their faith that their god would not fail them in their time of greatest need.
Panting, stumbling, I hurried on. Each moment I expected the end of everything. Every instant I expected the bowels of the earth to be torn asunder in one terrific, overwhelming eruption.
But minute after minute passed and still there was no outburst, still I struggled on. At last I gained the summit of the ridge. I was about to rush down the farther side when suddenly I realized the futility of my efforts to save myself from the impending doom. It was as hopeless for me to try to escape from the volcano as for the Xinguays to attempt to still it with their Death-Drum. When the eruption came, everything within miles would be destroyed. I could no more outrun the blasts of gas, the hail of stones and ashes, the molten lava, than the head-hunters I had killed could outrun my bullets.
I would be no safer dashing onward through the jungle than standing on the crater's rim. From far below me came the rumbling roar, the heavy detonations, but they seemed to be decreasing, growing fainter and fainter; and suddenly I was aware that the beat of the Death-Drum was no longer pulsating through the other sounds. I threaded my way between the trees until I could gaze down into the crater. I could scarcely believe my eyes. Not a trace of the place, not a vestige of the village remained.
Covering the whole floor of the crater, extending for a hundred feet or more up the sides of the great bowl, was a vast sheet of milky, steaming, boiling water!
The Disaster—The Effects of the Eruption
The appalling disaster almost overwhelmed me. I can't explain how I felt, or the sensations that swept over me. And they weren't due to the fact that the Xinguays had been completely wiped out, nor because of the awful death they had met. No, I think it was the sudden realization that I was alone, alone on the crater's rim, a puny, tiny, infinitessimal thing, surrounded by chaos and destruction. All my former terrors of an eruption were forgotten. It didn't seem to matter whether I lived or died. What was one man, one human being to the forces of Nature? Of what importance was I, a mere atom in the scheme of things of the universe? Nothing! No more than an ant, a grain of sand.
