"How delightfully you reason!" she said. "How logically, how generously!" "Reason is the handmaid of Science, Miss Blythe." She seemed to understand me. Her quick intelligence surprised me, because I myself was not perfectly sure whether I had emitted piffle or an epigram. As we ate our strawberry preserves we discussed ways and means of capturing a specimen of the little fire creatures which, as she explained, so frequently peeped out at her from the crater fires, and, at her slightest movement, scurried back again into the flames. Of course I believed that this was only her imagination. Yet, for years I had entertained a theory that fire supported certain unknown forms of life. "I have long believed," said I, "that fire is inhabited by living organisms which require the elements and temperature of active combustion for their existence--microoerganisms, but not," I added smilingly, "any higher type of life." "In the fireplace," she ventured diffidently, "I sometimes see curious things--dragons and snakes and creatures of grotesque and peculiar shapes." I smiled indulgently, charmed by this innocently offered contribution to science. Then she rose, and I rose and took her hand in mine, and we wandered over the grass toward the crater, while I explained to her the difference between what we imagine we see in the glowing coals of a grate fire and my own theory that fire is the abode of living animalculae. On the grassy edge of the crater we paused and looked down the slope, where the circle of steam rose, partly veiling the pale flash of fire underneath. "How near can we go?" I inquired. "Quite near. Come; I'll guide you." Leading me by the hand, she stepped over the brink and we began to descend the easy grass slope together. There was no difficulty about it at all. Down we went, nearer and nearer to the wall of steam, until at last, when but fifteen feet away from it, I felt the heat from the flames which sparkled below the wall of vapour. Here we seated ourselves upon the grass, and I knitted my brows and fixed my eyes upon this curious phenomenon, striving to discover some reason for it. Except for the vapour and the fires, there was nothing whatever volcanic about this spectacle, or in the surroundings. From where I sat I could see that the bed of fire which encircled the crater; and the wall of vapour which crowned the flames, were about three hundred feet wide. Of course this barrier was absolutely impassable. There was no way of getting through it into the bottom of the crater. A slight pressure from Miss Blythe's fingers engaged my attention; I turned toward her, and she said: "There is one more thing about which I have not told you. I feel a little guilty, because _that_ is the real reason I asked you to come here." "What is it?" "I think there are emeralds on the floor of that crater." "Emeralds!" "I _think_ so." She felt in the ruffled pocket of her apron, drew out a fragment of mineral, and passed it to me.