He turned back, and ventured as far towards the crater as the noxious exhalation would permit; then, gazing below, carefully and deliberately he chalked out for himself a path by which he trusted to shun the direction the fire-stream had taken, and trod firmly and quickly over the crumbling and heated strata.
He had proceeded about fifty yards, when he halted abruptly; an unspeakable and unaccountable horror, not hitherto experienced amidst all his peril, came over him.

He shook in every limb; his muscles refused his will,--he felt, as it were, palsied and death-stricken.

The horror, I say, was unaccountable, for the path seemed clear and safe.
The fire, above and behind, burned clear and far; and beyond, the stars lent him their cheering guidance.

No obstacle was visible,--no danger seemed at hand.

As thus, spell-bound, and panic-stricken, he stood chained to the soil,--his breast heaving, large drops rolling down his brow, and his eyes starting wildly from their sockets,--he saw before him, at some distance, gradually shaping itself more and more distinctly to his gaze, a colossal shadow; a shadow that seemed partially borrowed from the human shape, but immeasurably above the human stature; vague, dark, almost formless; and differing, he could not tell where or why, not only from the proportions, but also from the limbs and outline of man.
The glare of the volcano, that seemed to shrink and collapse from this gigantic and appalling apparition, nevertheless threw its light, redly and steadily, upon another shape that stood beside, quiet and motionless; and it was, perhaps, the contrast of these two things--the Being and the Shadow--that impressed the beholder with the difference between them,--the Man and the Superhuman.