"I've stayed here in Saint Pierre longer now than usual," he told her, pointing toward the mountain, "to study the old man yonder. Pelée, you know, is identified with Martinique, much the same as the memory of Josephine; yet the people of the city can't seem to take his present disorder seriously. This is cataclysmic country. Hell--I use the word to signify a geological stratum--is very close to the surface down here. All these lovely islands are merely ash-piles hurled up by the great subterranean fires. The point is, Lost Atlantis is apt to stir any time under the Caribbean--and rub out our very pretty panorama." "You regard this as an entertainment worth waiting for?" Paula asked. The vaguest sort of a smile passed over his eyes and touched his lips. "Pelée and I are very old friends. I spoke of the volcanic origin of these islands in the way of suggesting that any seismic activity in the archipelago--Pelée's present internal complaint, for instance,--should be taken significantly. Saint Pierre would have been white this morning--except for the heavy rain before dawn." "You mean volcanic ash?" "Exactly." "That explains the white scum I saw in the gutters, driving through the city.... But it isn't altogether a novelty, is it, for the mountain to behave this way?" "From time to time in the past ten days, Miss Wyndam, Pelée has had a session of grumbling." "I mean as a usual thing----" He turned to her abruptly and inquired, "Didn't you know that there hasn't been a sound from Pelée for twenty years before the month of April now ending?" This gave intimacy to the disorder. Mr. Stock was called away just now, but after dinner that night he joined Paula again on the great veranda. "Ever been in Pittsburg?" he asked. "No." "I've only to shut my eyes in this second-hand air--to think I'm back among the steel mills of the lower Monongahela." "The moon looks like beaten egg," Paula said with a slight shiver. "They must be suffering down in the city. You're the expert on Pelée, Mr. Stock, please tell me more about him." He had been regarding the new moon, low and to the left of the Carbet peaks. It had none of the sharpness of outline peculiar to the tropics, but was blurred and of an orange hue, instead of silvery. "It's the ash-fog in the air which has the effect of a fine wire screen," he explained. "We'll have a white world to-morrow, if it doesn't rain." They turned to the north where a low rumbling was heard. It was like distant thunder, but the horizon beyond Pelée was unscathed by lightning. "Are you really worried, Mr. Stock?" "Why, it's as I said. The fact that Pelée is acting out of the ordinary is quite enough to make any one skeptical regarding his intentions." He discussed familiarly certain of the man-eaters among the mountains of the world--Krakatoa, Bandaisan, Cotopaxi, Vesuvius, Ætna, calling them chronic old ruffians, whom Time doesn't tame.