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Looking across the crater Ben could see that there were four of the Vitelli spread out over a stretch of about fifty yards. As he watched a fifth came out of the jungle. They must have taken the wrong direction in their chase and this had enabled Ben, Francesca and Papa to gain a valuable lead. But that wasn’t going to be much help to them now.
It was obvious from the shouting that their pursuers had seen them. The group set off in a broad line, cutting straight across the centre of the crater, and only deviating around the fumaroles and mud-pools as they made for the shelf where Ben, Francesca and Papa were sheltering.
“It looks as though they aren’t as worried as you were about the dangers of the Solfatara,” observed Ben.
Francesca said nothing, but he noticed she was tightly gripping the small crucifix which always hung round her neck.
He looked around him to see if he could find a means of escape. About fifty yards away the crater walls began to climb in rough, irregular terraces towards the rim. They weren’t too steep to be tackled by a rock climber, but he had very little hope that he and Francesca would be able to climb the whole of the two hundred feet to the top, burdened as they were with Papa.
“All we can do is get as high as possible and try to defend ourselves.”
With another burst of furious energy, Ben picked up the old man and set off with him up the steep slope. Francesca pushed them from behind.
A further fifty feet up they reached a small, rough platform and Ben stopped, gasping for oxygen in the foul air. He could see that they wouldn’t be able to go any further. The walls in front of them were much steeper and the surface was very crumbly. Ben hadn’t had the opportunity to check ahead for the best route. Now they had at last come to a dead end. He deposited Papa and turned to look for suitable missiles to throw down on their enemies as they climbed towards them. This was where they must stand and defend themselves with whatever they had to hand.
“Look at them,” shouted Francesca.
He turned back to watch the Vitelli. Their pursuers had now bunched together in a short column as they threaded their way through a gap in the centre of the crater between a big mud geyser and a roaring fumarole. From this vantage point it appeared that they were surrounded on all sides by ever-increasing volcanic activity. Even as Ben watched a great column of steam burst out of the ground a few feet in front of them and they hastily retreated. Another and another jet spurted up until it seemed as though they were standing on a raft in the middle of a boiling sea.
There came a deep rumble and the whole volcano gave a violent shiver. Rocks were detached from the cliffs above them and came leaping and bounding down the slopes followed by showers of smaller stones which rattled all about them. Ben ducked involuntarily. If this were to continue they would need to find a protected corner. At that moment it felt as if they were being attacked from above and threatened from below.
Out in the centre of the crater he could see the ground was shaking violently and steam came shimmying out of holes all around. Two of the Vitelli fell down but were quickly on their feet again. They clustered fearfully in a group in the middle of their island which seemed to be rising magically out of the eruption that was breaking out all around them.
Ben watched with a terrible fascination as the great table of rock lifted slowly and began to tilt over on one side. Around its rim showed bright orange lava which spurted and leaped out in great cascades, scattering over the surrounding ground where it glowed dull red before slowly cooling to black. Even greater bursts of lava followed, climbing high into the air in slow motion before falling unwillingly back towards the crater bed in irregular trails with dozens of minor explosions.
One edge of the table slid under the red hot magma which seemed to bulge out to swallow the victims who were still clinging together in the centre. With ponderous slowness the raft began to tip ever more steeply towards the vertical. Suddenly it broke across the centre. Ben couldn’t hear the screams emanating from the open mouths as four of the five slid into the writhing mass of red. The black blotches remained there for a few seconds before they were swallowed up from sight. Only one person remained clinging to the sinking island. Although he couldn’t make out her features, Ben somehow knew that it was Sylvia. He felt that he couldn’t just leave her there without trying to do something to help her.
Although he knew in his heart that there was no hope of saving the woman, he began to scramble back down the slope towards the crater floor. He ignored Francesca’s shouts, dimly heard through the turmoil. But the next moment there came another, more violent earth tremor which threw him off his feet. Massive cracks, greater than ever before, split the floor of the crater. And as he watched a tongue of lava reached out and knocked the last of the Vitelli off her precarious perch just like a gigantic lizard swallowing an errant fly. Ben swore later that he could actually hear her shriek of terror before it was extinguished in the boiling lava.
He lay rooted to the spot for a long minute by the shock of it. All the hairs of his body tingled with horror. In a few short seconds the remainder of the Vitelli family had been consumed by the volcano. At that minute he could believe every word of the Legend of the Wolf of Hades.
As he lay there, watching the writhing magma throwing out ever more spectacular fireworks, he became aware of Francesca tugging at his arm. “Quick! Quick!” she screamed above the noise. “We too will be overwhelmed. We must try to get Papa out of the crater before it gets any worse.”
Ben came back to his senses. The ground was almost constantly shuddering and vibrating under his body as explosion after explosion tossed red hot rocks and lava out of the centre of the volcano. Even as he watched a more violent earthquake shook free a massive area of the northern rim of the crater and the landslide came rolling across the floor towards them. Some of the larger boulders rolled into the bubbling lava and burst apart as the moisture in them expanded, creating a further display of pyrotechnics.
Ben climbed to his feet. He shook his head to clear it and tried to make himself think logically. “No. We must go back the way we came. We’ll never climb up to the rim. In any case the tremors are likely to bring down big chunks of the cliffs.”
“I won’t go back across the crater.”
“We’ll keep close to the edge and hope we don’t get caught in any landslides.”
They scrambled back to where Papa was cowering on his lonely shelf and helped him to his feet. Francesca explained to him what they were going to do and he agreed with a weary wave of the hand. Carefully they started down again, picking their way over the unstable surface. Then another violent earth tremor shook the ground around them and they had to cling to each other to keep their footing. With a tearing rumble another great crack opened up in the ground just ahead of them. It must have been at least four feet across and an eerie glow was emitted from deep inside it. Ben hesitated to jump across it. He didn’t want them to find themselves in the same sort of position as the Vitelli had been.
The way that the activity was building up in the Solfatara it seemed more than likely that they would be prevented from getting out through the jungle area by the massive earth movements which were now taking place almost every minute. But if they stayed where they were, they could easily be overwhelmed by a landslide or injured by falling rocks. There was almost no choice. It seemed as though the Wolf of Hades was still on the prowl.
“Come on,” Ben urged. “We must cross this crack ahead before it gets any wider.”
Papa said something and Francesca translated. “He says he cannot jump across the chasm. He is afraid he will fall in.”
“No, he won’t. I’ll stand the other side and you can hand him to me. Come on! We mustn’t delay any longer. The gap may get wider.”
At first it seemed as though Francesca was about to argue with him, but she said nothing and made to follow him. However Papa sat down and refused to move another inch.
“He says he would rather die here than in the bottom of a cr
evasse,” she said. “He says you are to go on without him.”
Ben looked down at the old man helplessly. “What are we to do then?”
“I will not leave him. Why don’t you go by yourself? You will be able to move faster without us. When you get out you can bring the police back to rescue us.”
He weighed the idea in his mind. “That might take hours. This thing seems to be getting worse all the time.” He pointed at the ever more violent activity going on in the centre of the crater where a cone of volcanic debris was already starting to build up. Lava and red hot rocks were starting to creep across the ground towards them. At the nearest point they were probably only seventy or eighty yards away.
Ben pulled a face. “I don’t think you will last that long.”
“We will climb back up to the platform where we were before. We will be safe there for much longer.”
“You might easily get caught by a landslide.” He pointed at it. “Look Francesca, it’s only a four foot gap – not much over a metre. He could easily make that.”
“But there will be others.” Francesca seemed to have made up her mind. “I understand how he feels. He has had enough of running.”
Ben could see there was no point in further argument. “All right. I will help you back.”
Together they helped Papa to his feet and started back up the slope again. But they hadn’t gone more than twenty yards before there were more violent tremors and another massive rumbling. When Ben looked back the crack had widened to ten feet or so and lava was starting to well up out of the ground.
“It’s too late now in any case.”
“I’m sorry.” Francesca’s face had gone white. “But somehow I couldn’t force him.”
Ben shrugged. “I think it’s better if we stick together anyway. Perhaps the volcano will quieten down in an hour or so, now that it’s had its victims.”
They set off again, scrambling silently back up to their little shelf where they could sit and watch the most spectacular show on earth from a ringside seat.
The Mafia Emblem Page 58