I only found out one thing--I didn't seem to be wanted down there, being in the way, as you may say, and likely to stop the pipes.
And now, Mr Small, sir, I'd take it kindly if you'd come in the wood there with me and lend a hand while I wring all the wet I can out o' my things, as'll make 'em dry more handy." The boatswain nodded, and the pair went in among the trees, leaving the others discussing the narrow escapes and sending a stone or two down, and then a great dead dry stump of a tree-fern, all of which were shot up again, the stones after an interval, the fern stump, which was as long as Billy Widgeon and thicker round, coming up again directly.
"Why, major," said the captain at last, "if you had told me all this some day after dinner back in England, I'm afraid I shouldn't have believed you." "I'm sure I should not have believed you," said the major laughing.

"It sounds like a sea-serpent story, and I don't think I shall ever venture to tell it unless I can produce the man." At that moment Billy came back out of the jungle, looking very ill-tempered, and his first act as the fount played again, was to go close to the edge of the basin and try the temperature of the water.
"Just tidy," he said, as they descended from the level shelf where the geysers were clustered, and along by the little gurgling rocky stream which carried off their overflowings before reaching the slope of the mountain, and beginning to climb with fresh and unexpected wonders on every hand.
It was nervous work, for as they climbed the earth trembled beneath their feet; low, muttering, thunderous sounds could be heard, while here and there from crevices puffs of sulphurous, throat-stinging vapour escaped.
Then a bubbling hot spring was reached, not a geyser like those on the shelf across the long valley, but a little gurgling fount of the most beautifully pure water, but so heated that it was impossible to thrust a hand therein.
"Are we going much higher, Mr Mark ?" said Billy Widgeon at last.
"Feels to me as if we should go through before we knowed where we was." "Going to the top, I suppose," said Mark, smiling at the man's face, though he could not help feeling some slight trepidation as strange volcanic suggestions of what was beneath them in the mountain kept manifesting themselves at every step.
"Oh, all right!" said Billy in a tone of resignation; "but I do purtest, if I am to die, agin being biled." The climb up the mountain side was continued for some time, fresh wonders being disclosed at every step.

The jungle grew less thick, with the result that flowers were more plentiful, and if not more abundant the birds and gloriously-painted insects were easier to see.

Hot springs were plentiful, and formed basins surrounded by the deposit from the water, a petrifaction of the most delicate tints, while the water was of the most exquisite blue.
A little higher, and in a narrow ravine among the rocks a perfect chasm, into which they descended till the sides almost shut out the light of day, so closely did they approach above their heads, Mark, who was in advance, made a find of a deposit of a delicate greenish yellow.
"Why, here's sulphur!" he exclaimed, picking up a beautifully crystallised lump, while the rock above was incrusted with angular pieces of extreme beauty.
"Yes, sulphur," said the captain; "and I don't think we'll go any farther here.

It may be risky." "I'll just see how soon this cleft ends," said the major, approaching what seemed to be the termination of the gorge--quite a jagged rift, cut or split in the side of the mountain.
The major went on cautiously, for, as he proceeded, it grew darker, the rift rapidly becoming a cavern.
"It runs right into the mountain!" he cried, and his voice echoed strangely.