"Off to the horses!" the officer cried aloud; and before I knew what was happening, two of the sailors had seized me in their arms, and were hurrying me away at a break-neck pace up the steep zig-zag to the level of the summit.
In the ravine, we came, sure enough, upon the horses, tethered and guarded by a couple of sailors. "Mount," the officer cried with military promptitude: and the men mounted, not exactly, I must confess, with the ease or grace of cavalry orderlies. I mounted myself, too, with what skill I could command, taking into consideration that broken leg of mine; and giving the trusty little ponies their heads, we rode at full speed in breathless haste, but in long Indian file down the narrow bridle path to the base of the mountain.
I knew well the gully where the two roads joined, and where Kalaua had threatened to meet us in hostile array with his proscribed band of heathen followers. It was an ugly spot, with great overhanging rocks to defend the pass, and if they got there first, I knew we should have to fight them for possession of Kea. All depended now upon the swiftness and sureness of foot of our ponies. To be sure, we were mounted, while Kalaua and his party were all on foot; but then, most of us had been greatly delayed by the necessity for recrossing the chasm on the rope bridge in order to get at our path and our horses; and even apart from this unavoidable stoppage, very few ponies, at the best of times, can cover the ground faster than an unimpeded Hawaiian. Those fellows can run like a deer or greyhound. I trembled for the result if they held the rocks above the fort in full force. They could hurl down stones upon us from the heights with infinite ease, crush us like locusts as we passed beneath them: even fire-arms there would be useless against a party that held the pass in any numbers.
[Illustration: "WE RODE AT FULL SPEED IN BREATHLESS HASTE."]
On, on, we rode, in fear and trembling. The volcano now was all in full blast. Ashes and pumice stone kept falling around us. Smoke and steam obscured our way. But the dangers of nature frightened us little in comparison; what we dreaded most was the desperate onslaught of the enraged Hawaiians.