We could not yet see the top of the slope, for the mist still lay upon it; but as we drew nearer a pretty gentle gale sprang up, which with the sunbeams drove the mist away, leaving only a small portion, which hovered like a thick white cloud, or a nightcap, over the dark summit. While I was gazing at it, wondering why it stayed so constantly just there, I was amazed to see a part of this cloud shoot up to a prodigious height, and while I was still in that amazement, we heard a dull booming noise, like the discharge of a great gun far away. At this Billy ceased paddling and looked at me as one affrighted, and asked me very fearfully whether we had come to a country where the French were fighting with the native people. But I perceived now that the sea was in commotion around us, and it suddenly came into my mind that this mountain we saw before us was a burning mountain, or volcano, like to what I had read of in my lesson books, though I had thought that they sent forth fire and smoke and burning streams of lava. And then, remembering the great wave which had struck our vessel and caused the panic among the seamen, I bethought me that it was maybe due to an earthquake, which affects as well the sea as the land. I told Billy what I thought, and he was much relieved that we had not happened upon the French, but said very gloomily that we should not be much better off on land below a burning mountain than on the sea, and for his part he would sooner drown, that being, as 'twas said, an easy death, than be burned alive. However, I said that we had as yet seen no fire, and perhaps the furnace in the mountain was dying out, and we could at the least put it to the test. In short, I persuaded him to take up his paddle again, which he did, and so brought us a little nearer to the land. But we now perceived that the raft was taken in a current, which bore us to the right hand towards the promontory I have mentioned above, but obliquely, so that we were like to be carried past it without being able to land. The wind was blowing against the current, and we hoped it might stay our course long enough for us to come at some haven; but though we loosed another spar, which I used very diligently though with little dexterity, the current gained upon us, and I saw that we should never do it. In that predicament it came into my mind that we might use our coats as a sail, and we instantly stripped them off and joined them together by the sleeves, and then we lashed them to the spar I had been plying and held it upright, Billy drawing the loose end taut by two short lengths of rope which he fastened very quickly to the extremity of the raft. The sail made a very extraordinary appearance, as you may believe, but Billy laughed merrily when he saw it fill with the wind, and so, he working his paddle, and me holding the mast--with no little difficulty, for the wind was blowing more strongly--we drew nearer and nearer to the land.