The heat had burnt the flesh from off the bones; they lay as a
light cork upon the melted, fiery waves. One skeleton hand was raised
upward, the finger pointing to heaven; the other, with outstretched finger,
pointing downward, as though it would say, 'I go below, but you, Bonaparte,
may soar above.' I gazed; I stood entranced. At that instant there was a
crack in the lurid lake; it swelled, expanded, and the skeleton of the
suicide disappeared, to be seen no more by mortal eye."
Here again Bonaparte rested, and then continued:
"The lake of melted stone rose in the crater, it swelled higher and higher
at the side, it streamed forth at the top. I had presence of mind; near me
was a rock; I stood upon it. The fiery torrent was vomited out and
streamed on either side of me. And through that long and terrible night I
stood there alone upon that rock, the glowing, fiery lava on every hand--a
monument of the long-suffering and tender providence of the Lord, who
spared me that I might this day testify in your ears of Him.
"Now, my dear friends, let us deduce the lessons that are to be learnt from
this narrative.
"Firstly: let us never commit suicide. The man is a fool, my friends,
that man is insane, my friends, who would leave this earth, my friends.
Here are joys innumerable, such as it hath not entered into the heart of
man to understand, my friends.
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