The ash-hung valley was far behind, and Charter drank deeply of the clean, east wind from the Atlantic. There was a rush of bitterness, too, because the woman was not there to share these priceless volumes of sunlit vitality. All the impetus of enterprise was needed now to turn the point of conflict, and force it into the background again.... They pushed through Ajoupa Boullion to the gorge of the Falaise, the northward bank of which marked the trail which Jacques chose to the summit. And now they moved upward in the midst of the old glory of Martinique. The brisk Trades blowing evenly in the heights, wiped the eastern slope of the mountain clear of stone-dust and whipped the blasts of sulphur down into the valley toward the shore. Green lakes of cane filled the valleys behind, and groves of cocoa-palms, so distant and so orderly that they looked like a city garden set with hen and chickens.... Northward, through the rifts, glistened the sea, steel-blue and cool. Before them rose the vast, green-clad mass of the mountain, its corona dim with smoke and lashed by storm. Down in the southwest lay the ghastly pall, the hidden, tortured city, tranced under the cobra-head of the volcano and already laved in its poison. The trail became very steep at two thousand feet, and this fact, together with the back-thresh of the summit disturbance, forced Charter to abandon the animals. It transpired that two of the three later guides felt it their duty, at this point, to stay behind with the mules. A little later, when the growling from the prone, upturned face of the Monster suddenly arose to a roar that twisted the flesh and outraged the senses of man, Charter looked back and found that only one native was faltering behind, instead of two. And this one was Jacques, of the savage eyes. Pere Rabeaut was praised again. Fascination for the dying Thing took hold of him now and drew him on. Charter was little conscious of fear for his life, but of a fixed terror lest he should be unable to go on. He found himself tearing up a handkerchief and stuffing the shreds in his ears to deaden the hideous vibrations. With the linen remaining, he filled his mouth, shutting his jaws together upon it, as the wheels of a wagon are blocked on an incline.