Page:The crater; or, Vulcan's peak.djvu/273

OR, VULCAN S PEAK. 33 the very savage chief who now threatened his colony with destruction. But the emergency did not admit of any protracted in quiry into, or any consultation on the means necessary to relieve their old shipmates from a fate so miserable. Cir cumstances required that the governor should now give his attention to the important concerns immediately before him. CHAPTER III. " To whom belongs this valley fair, That sleeps beneath the filmy air, Even like a living thing? Silent as infant at the breast, Save a still sound that speaks of rest, That streamlet s murmuring 1 ?" WlLSOTf. WHEN the governor had communicated to his people that the savages were actually among the islands of their own group, something very like a panic carne over them. A few minutes, however, sufficed to restore a proper de gree of confidence, when the arrangements necessary to their immediate security were entered into. As some at tention had previously been bestowed on the fortifications of the crater, that place was justly deemed the citadel of the Reef. Some thought the ship would be the most easily defended, on account of the size of the crater, and because it had a natural ditch around it, but so much pro perty was accumulated in and around the crater that it could not be abandoned without a loss to which the go vernor had no idea of submitting. The gate of the crater was nothing in the way of defence, it is true; but one of the carronades had been planted so as to command it, and this was thought sufficient for repelling all ordinary as saults. It has been said, already, that the outer wall of the crater was perpendicular at its base, most probably owing to the waves of the ocean in that remote period