“Honourably please stand very still,” called the boy quickly. And we stayed dead still. The gust of wind rushed by us, rushed on. Then another blew till we cowered on the sinking lava. It was so long in passing that the moments seemed as hours. We stood like statues. Insidiously the lava crept above our feet, crept stealthily, and motionless we waited. The gust died down but the wind still blew, still blew. A light quivered for a moment in the darkness and went out. The boy had lit a match. He struck another. It flickered in little yellow leaps that showed the lantern and his face and went abruptly out. Again the tiny mandorla of light shot up, the boy was holding the lantern in his hand all ready. We could see the flame double as the candle caught, then both went swiftly out, for again the wind came rushing down. It blew and blew. Then it blew so fiercely that to blow again it stopped to take its breath. Quickly in the second’s pause the match flared up, the lantern lit, and we could move. As we drew out our feet the wicked sticking lava sucked, and the boy held the lantern low to peer out the cracks. Then he turned sharply to the left, and the wind was gone. We stood in a narrow roofless cave whose sides were overhanging rock, whose floor was lava ash, wet with big rain pools. This was the old crater. Asama has three craters, and two are at present in disuse. We were sheltering in one of these. It was a still haven of refuge after the fury of the wind outside, and a sure. There were no cracks, no sticky sucking lava here. With relief as from a heavy burden we sat down upon the wet ash to rest and eat, the lantern in our midst. It was now 3 o’clock. Since midnight we had been climbing, our clothes were soaked and heavy with rain and cinders, and we were very tired. The boy prosaically unpacked the hamper, and by the flickering light he set out plates and food. But before we could take one mouthful, the wind rushed down the roofless cave, upset the hamper, swept the lantern along the ash before it, tore like a whirlwind from end to end, and left us in an unearthly livid darkness that lighted nothing. For a moment we all stayed numbed, then the boy sought the remnants of his lantern and we the remnants of our meal. They were both embedded in thick lava dust. We could not go on up the crater now, for every minute the wind blew fiercer, and the paper lantern was torn in several places. We must wait for the dawn to show us the way. So we huddled under the shelter of the overhanging rock and waited. The livid darkness that lay upon the mountain grew more livid and less dark to our watching eyes, till we could distinguish the faint outlines of things, though not the things themselves. It was, oh! so cold, and that sense of stagnant terror, dispersed for a little by the wind and the food, crept back and back, intenser, dumber than before. * * * * *