Shivering, she pressed close to him as the distant black smoke-cloud spread toward the center of the sky. CHAPTER EIGHT Before sunset, they reached the area of ashes where the ship had stood. Cochrane was sure that if anybody else had been left behind besides themselves, the landing-place was an inevitable rendezvous. Only three members of the ship's company had been inside when Babs and Cochrane left to stroll for the two hours astronomers on Earth had set as a waiting-period. Jones had been in the ship, and Holden, and Alicia Simms. Everybody else had been exploring. Their attitude had been exactly that of sight-seers and tourists. But they could have gotten back before the take-off. Apparently they had. Nobody seemed to have returned to the burned-over space since the ship's departure. The blast of the rockets had erased all previous tracks, but still there was a thin layer of ash resettled over the clearing. Footprints would have been visible in it. Anybody remaining would have come here. Nobody had. Babs and Cochrane were left alone. There were still temblors, but the sharper shocks no longer came. There was conflagration in the wood, where the lurching ship had left a long fresh streak of forest-fire. The two castaways stared at the round, empty landing-place. Overhead, the blue sky turned yellow--but where the smoke from the eruption rose, the sky early became a brownish red--and presently the yellow faded to gold. Unburned green foliage all about was singularly beautiful in that golden glow. But it was more beautiful still as the sky turned rose-pink and then carmine in turn, and then crimson from one horizon to the other save where the volcanic smoke-cloud marred the color. Then the east darkened, and became a red so deep as to be practically black, and unfamiliar bright stars began to peep through it. Before darkness was complete, Cochrane dragged burning branches from the edge of the new fire--the heat was searing--and built a new and smaller fire in the place where the ship had been. "This isn't for warmth," he explained briefly, "but so we'll have light if we need it. And it isn't likely that animals will be anything but afraid of it." He went off to drag charred masses of burnable stuff from the burned-out first forest fire. He built a sort of rampart in the very center of the clearing. He brought great heaps of scorched wood. He did not know how much was needed to keep the fire going until dawn. When he finished, Babs was silently at work trying to find out how to keep the fire going. The burning parts had to be kept together. One branch, burning alone, died out. Two red-hot brands in contact kept each other alight. "I'm sorry we haven't anything to eat," Cochrane told her. "I'm not hungry," she assured him. "What are we going to do now?"