Apparently there was only one crater to the volcano, out of which the columns of fire issued, streaked with forked lightning. Electricity seemed to have something to do with this magnificent panorama. Above the panting flames waved an immense plume-shaped cloud of smoke, red at its base and black at its summit. It rose with incomparable majesty, and unrolled in thick volumes. The sky was ash-colour to a great height, and it was evident that the darkness that had prevailed while the tempest lasted, which had seemed quite inexplicable to the Doctor, was owing to the columns of cinders overspreading the sun like a thick curtain. He remembered a similar phenomenon which occurred in the Barbadoes, where the whole island was plunged in profound obscurity by the mass of cinders ejected from the crater of Isle St. Vincent. This enormous ignivomous rock in the middle of the sea was six thousand feet high, just about the altitude of Hecla. It seemed to rise gradually out of the water as the boat got nearer. There was no trace of vegetation, indeed there was no shore; the rock ran straight down to the sea. "Can we land?" said the Doctor. "The wind is carrying us right to it," said Altamont. "But I don't see an inch of land to set our foot upon." "It seems so at this distance," said Johnson; "but we shall be sure to find some place to run in our boat at, and that is all we want." "Let us go on, then," said Clawbonny, dejectedly. He had no heart now for anything. The North Pole was indeed before his eyes, but not the man who had discovered it. As they got nearer the island, which was not more than eight or ten miles in circumference, the navigators noticed a tiny fiord, just large enough to harbour their boat, and made towards it immediately. They feared their captain's dead body would meet their eyes on the coast, and yet it seemed difficult for a corpse to lie on it, for there was no shore, and the sea broke on steep rocks, which were covered with cinders above watermark. At last the little sloop glided gently into the narrow opening between two sandbanks just visible above the water, where she would be safe from the violence of the breakers; but before she could be moored, Duk began howling and barking again in the most piteous manner, as if calling on the cruel sea and stony rocks to yield up his lost master. The Doctor tried to calm him by caresses, but in vain. The faithful beast, as if he would represent the captain, sprang on shore with a tremendous bound, sending a cloud of cinders after him. "Duk! Duk!" called Clawbonny. But Duk had already disappeared. [Illustration: ] After the sloop was made fast, they all got out and went after him. Altamont was just going to climb to the top of a pile of stones, when the Doctor exclaimed, "Listen!" Duk was barking vehemently some distance off, but his bark seemed full of grief rather than fury. "Has he come on the track of some animal, do you think?" asked Johnson.