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Like many other modern pleasure-yachts, the Dobryna, in addition
to her four-oar, was fitted with a fast-going little steam-launch,
its screw being propelled, on the Oriolle system, by means of a boiler,
small but very effective. Early next morning, this handy little craft
was sufficiently freighted with coal (of which there was still about ten
tons on board the Dobryna), and manned by nobody except the captain,
the count, and the lieutenant, left the harbor of the Shelif, much to the
bewilderment of Ben Zoof, who had not yet been admitted into the secret.
The orderly, however, consoled himself with the reflection that he had
been temporarily invested with the full powers of governor general,
an office of which he was not a little proud.
The eighteen miles between the island and the headland
were made in something less than three hours.
The volcanic eruption was manifestly very considerable,
the entire summit of the promontory being enveloped in flames.
To produce so large a combustion either the oxygen of Gallia's
atmosphere had been brought into contact with the explosive gases
contained beneath her soil, or perhaps, still more probable,
the volcano, like those in the moon, was fed by an internal
supply of oxygen of her own.
It took more than half an hour to settle on a suitable landing-place.
At length, a small semi-circular creek was discovered among the rocks,
which appeared advantageous, because, if circumstances should so require,
it would form a safe anchorage for both the Dobryna and the Hansa.
The launch securely moored, the passengers landed on the side of
the promontory opposite to that on which a torrent of burning lava
was descending to the sea. With much satisfaction they experienced,
as they approached the mountain, a sensible difference in the temperature,
and their spirits could not do otherwise than rise at the prospect of having
their hopes confirmed, that a deliverance from the threatened calamity
had so opportunely been found. On they went, up the steep acclivity,
scrambling over its rugged projections, scaling the irregularities of its
gigantic strata, bounding from point to point with the agility of chamois,
but never alighting on anything except on the accumulation of the same
hexagonal prisms with which they had now become so familiar.
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