04 Volcano Adventure Read Free Page B

a lava fountain at the bottom of the pit and once more he was the calm and interested man of science. He evidently had no memory whatever of those two terrible minutes.
    Asama means Without Bottom, and for centuries the Japanese believed that the volcano had no bottom. But during recent years the bottom has been steadily rising and could now be plainly seen about six hundred feet down.
    There, fountains of white-hot lava shot up into the air. Some rose as high as the crater’s edge, then fell back. Others kept on climbing thousands of feet into the sky and fell on the mountaintop, with great danger to the volcanologists.
    Below the fountains was a boiling white lake of liquid stone. It churned and rolled like the rapids of a great river. Pockets of gas exploded and burst into flame. Huge rocks were hurled up against the sides of the crater and fell back only to be hurled up again. Small stones by the thousand leaped up half a mile into the sky as if shot from a gun. Everywhere steam spurted out of cracks like smoke from the nostrils of a dragon. The din was terrific. The boys put their hands over their ears.
    But the doctor did not seem to mind. He focused his pyrometer on the crater floor. Its temperature was 2,500 degrees Centigrade. He made notes. Then he pointed to a patch of yellow and orange on the inside slope of the crater about fifty feet down. The noise slackened for a moment and he was able to say,
    ‘I’m going down to take a look at that.’
    He unslung the coil of line that he carried on his shoulder. Although small, light rope, it was nylon and very strong. He looped one end of the rope around him under his arms and gave the rest of the coil to the boys.
    ‘Just let me down easily,’ he said.
    He stepped over the edge and down the steep slope, the hot ashes sliding under his feet. The boys paid out the line. When he slipped they braced themselves and checked his fall.
    He reached the colourful deposit of minerals and studied it with his spectroscope. The boys held the line taut. Hal couldn’t help thinking, what would happen if a blob of sizzling lava should fall on the line and burn it in two?
    The doctor looked up and signalled that he was ready to come back. He scrambled up through the sliding ashes while the boys hauled in on the line.
    When he stood beside them again they were breathless from exertion and excitement, but he seemed quite unaffected by his descent into a blazing volcano.
    It was about a mile around the crater’s edge and finally they came near the spot from which they had started. They looked for the three Japanese but the smoke from the volcano now drifting around them cut down visibility.
    Suddenly, through the smoke two figures came running after them. They recognized Toguri and Machida. Both were greatly excited.
    ‘You come,’ Toguri called. ‘You come - quick - see.’ They turned and ran back into the smoke, Dr Dan and the boys following them. They stopped beside something blue that lay in a heap on the ground.

Chapter 4
The discouraged student
    It was a coat. The blue coat of a school uniform. Hal picked it up. He guessed at once what had happened.
    ‘Was Kobo in trouble?’ he asked Toguri. ‘He seemed very unhappy.’
    ‘Kobo take English examination,’ said Toguri. ‘He fail
    - no good.’
    Hal wondered how anybody could pass an English examination with such a teacher as Toguri.
    They all went to the edge of the crater and looked down. It was impossible to see anything, the smoke was in the way.
    ‘We go,’ Toguri said. ‘We go - tell his mother.’
    ‘Wait,’ said Dr Dan. ‘He may still be alive. I’ll go down and see.’
    The Japanese stared in disbelief.
    ‘Go in crater?’ exclaimed Toguri. ‘No can do.’
    ‘He may not have fallen all the way down. Perhaps he landed on a ledge.’ Dr Dan uncoiled his line and began to knot the end about him.
    Hal looked again into the pit. The sun was well up now and already very hot, but still it did not penetrate