04 Volcano Adventure Read Free

boldly - as if he were afraid to show fear. And again he broke into the wild song of the night. It sounded as weird by daylight as it had in the darkness.
    Suddenly he came to an abrupt halt.
    ‘We have arrived V he cried.
    The others came up beside him. A few feet ahead the ground dropped away to nothing. Great billows of smoke rose to mingle with the flying fog.
    Their eyes could make out nothing but their ears told them that they were standing at the edge of the crater.

Chapter 3
Crater’s edge
    A noise like the roar of ten thousand angry lions came up from the pit.
    Beneath that noise there was another like the rumble of freight trains over a bridge. Then there was a higher note, the sound of escaping steam, like the hiss of a great serpent. And there were sudden explosions as if charges of dynamite were being set off.
    The din became so terrific that when Dr Dan spoke again no one could hear him.
    Hal remembered what he had read in Terry’s Guide: ‘Mt Asama is the largest, angriest, and most treacherous volcano in Japan. The dangers at the summit are manifold and should not be regarded lightly.’
    It was terrifying - and yet pleasant, because the heat rising from the fires beneath felt very good after a night in the chill fog. Each one of the visitors revolved like a chicken on a spit in order to warm himself all over.
    From the bag that Hal carried, Dr Dan produced various instruments, a thermometer, a pyroscope, a small spectroscope. He began to take readings and jot down the results in his notebook. He captured some of the rising gas in a test tube and put it away for later study.
    He spoke again, but although the boys could see his lips move they could not hear a word. Dr Dan signalled to the boys to follow him and set off along the edge of the crater.
    Hal, looking back, saw a strange sight. The three Japanese had lined up in a row and were bowing deeply to the smoking crater.
    Hal had read about this - the way the Japanese worship their volcanoes. Their religion, Shinto, makes every volcano a shrine or holy place. The god of the volcano must be treated with deep respect or he will become angry and destroy the villages in the country below.
    The god is a terrible god and nothing pleases him so much as human sacrifice. In the old days human victims were thrown into his hungry mouth. Anyone selected to be given to the god was supposed to regard it as an
    honour.
    Nowadays no one is thrown to the god, but many persons still give themselves to him of their own free will. In this way they think they are performing a holy act, and at the same time they are escaping their own troubles. The man who has lost his job may jump into a volcano. The woman whose children misbehave may end her life in the crater. The young lovers whose parents will not let them marry may leap together into the flames. The student who has failed in his examination may choose to
    die here.
    In Europe and America such an escape from duty would be considered cowardly. The Japanese do not think of it in that way and every year hundreds of disappointed people go to the arms of the fire god in any of the fifty-eight active volcanoes of Japan.
    Hal looked back again. Toguri and Machida were wandering off along the edge of the pit. But Kobo still stood where he had been, gazing into the crater. Then he sat down on a rock and buried his head in his hand.
    Hal wanted to go back to him. But what could he do? Perhaps there was nothing wrong. If there was, Kobo’s Japanese friends could look after him. Dr Dan was already fifty feet ahead and signalling impatiently for Hal to come along. Hal hurried to catch up.
    It was an exciting walk along the crater’s edge. One side of your body was chilled by the fog, the other side baked by the fire-breathing monster. The ground was very hot underfoot. Hal found himself walking on the edges of his shoes to avoid the heat.
    Here and there steam spurted up between the rocks. If you didn’t watch where you were