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his head in his hands, and rocked side to side. It had been an unbe-
lievable day, a horrid day. His capture, the flogging, Christopher s
battered face, all those events and images returned to his mind one
after another. It had been a continuous, sickening nightmare. He was
exhausted in body and felt he could endure no more in his mind. There
was no urgent reason to move or do anything in the next few hours.
He grabbed his bundle and picked a way through the trees until he
found a level place hidden from the ledge above. A long sigh escaped
from him as he settled on his left side for a nap. His back and right
side had received the worst of the flogging. The branches and leaves
above patterned a mottled, moving shade over his body. Sleep came
over him easier than he expected despite the pain of his back, and he
never awakened, even for a moment, in the next few hours.
The sun had gone behind the peaks and the air had cooled by the
time he stirred into a groggy consciousness and sat up. There might
have been dreams in that heavy sleep, but he could not recall the least
fragment of one. He picked up his bundle and climbed back to the
edge of the plateau. Cautiously, he rose step by step and scanned over
the grass from the shallows to the peaks. The water had widened the
breach through the side of the volcano and it was filled with a mist
that extended out over the mud and debris on the flat. The cooler
afternoon air had precipitated it from the warmed floodwater. Thomas
calculated that, with no figure wading through the grass in the dis-
tance, he could start back on his trek along the rim of the bluff to his
den. He hoisted his load and began walking to the south. By keeping
to the edge, he could travel with ease, and should he detect the offi-
cers on the grassland, he might simply climb over the bluff and conceal
himself in the trees.
Thomas came to the first of the runnels. It had been filled with
the lake s dirty water, but it had now drained away and was low enough
to be waded, though still double its usual depth. Farther up its bed,
the bushes and flax plants on the banks had been forced down, with
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many even uprooted and carried away by the speed of the flow. Mats
of twigs and grass were washed against the trunks and caught in the
limbs of the small trees that had withstood the deluge. Down on the
coast the surf showed a brown tinge and, just beyond, a discoloration
to the green swells. Thomas estimated it had to have been a great bore
to have carried so much sediment across the breadth of the flatland
and then down through the rocks and trees of the bluff to the sea. He
found that the next branch, having received more of the flood in a
direct line, had had the lower portion of its channel scoured clear of
any greenery and the underlying rock of its banks exposed. The height
from which the lake had escaped had given it great impetus, and,
where the rush of water had spilled over the bluff, it had torn a swathe
through the trees the entire distance to the beach below. A lesser cas-
cade still poured over the edge. Piles of ferns, limbs, and clumps of
flax were deposited on the rocks of the beach. Flotsam churned in the
dirtied waves for a quarter of a mile along the shore. Thomas waded
across what had once been the idling stream that flowed from the
plateau. Even now, after much of the flood had drained away, it was
still knee-deep and four times as wide as it had been before the del-
uge raced through it. He could feel he was walking on a smooth layer
of limestone. All the cinders and porous rocks that had composed its
bed had been scoured away.
It amazed him that such a mite of the mate s rude black powder,
just a few pounds, had caused all the destruction he saw. It had to
have been cleverly placed to have such an impact. It had worked like
a small round shot striking a ship s rudder and having an effect all out
of proportion to its size.
He continued on to his hideaway; and there, to his relief, he found
nothing had been disturbed. The den had a homey feel, though it was
only a space under a rock with windbreaks formed of matted bushes
and weeds at each side.
It had been an unbelievable day. He could never have imagined in
the dark hours of the morning that all those mad events would come
to pass. He stowed his bundle at the back, but he suddenly felt a
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weakness and shaking in his arms and legs. Food was what he needed
at that moment. He pulled the hide back out and opened it. The pota-
toes were no problem; he munched them skins and all. Fish were not
as neatly eaten. His fingers picked one out and placed it on a scrap
of hide. He pinched up bits of its flesh and put them into his mouth.
The spiny bones he felt with his tongue and pushed them out of his
mouth. Those he placed on a corner of the hide. At the finish of his
meal, he rolled up the bones and the head in the fish skin. He would
carry them to the beach and bury them as he had always done to keep
his den clean. Thomas stretched out on his mat of leaves and ferns.
Having lost an entire night s sleep, he needed more rest.
Four hours later when he opened his eyes again, he could see a
little by the last of the twilight. He remained lying on his left side and
stared at the gloom. No birds called, and there were only murmurs of
the surf below. He pulled aside a few of the vines hanging over the
entrance to his den. Outside, there was enough of the faint light to
give gray shape to the larger rocks. Tree trunks were indicated by what
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