It will be easier to die fighting.' 'I cannot,' he groaned; 'my doom is upon me.' 'As you will,' and I came at him, sword up.
He ran from before me, moving backwards and keeping his eyes fixed upon mine, as I have seen a rat do when a snake is about to swallow it.

Now we were upon the edge of the crater, and looking over I saw an awful sight.

For there, some thirty feet beneath us, the red-hot lava glowing sullenly beneath a shifting pall of smoke, rolled and spouted like a thing alive.

Jets of steam flew upwards from it with a screaming sound, lines of noxious vapours, many-coloured, crept and twisted on its surface, and a hot and horrid stench poisoned the heated air.

Here indeed was such a gate as I could wish for de Garcia to pass through to his own abode.
I looked, pointed with my sword, and laughed; he looked and shrieked aloud, for now all his manhood had left him, so great was his terror of what lay beyond the end.