Part 13 (2/2)
A few minutes more, and the whole party stood on the Montanvert beside the small inn which has been erected there for the use of summer tourists, and from which point the great glacier broke for the first time in all its grandeur, on their view.
Well might Emma and Nita stand entranced for some time, unable to find utterance to their feelings, save in the one word--wonderful! Even Slingsby's mercurial spirit was awed into silence, for, straight before them, the white and frozen billows of the Mer de Glace stretched for miles away up into the gorges of the giant hills until lost in and mingled with the clouds of heaven.
CHAPTER ELEVEN.
The Pursuit of Science under Difficulties.
After the first burst of enthusiasm and interest had abated, the attention of the party became engrossed in the proceedings of the Professor, who, with his a.s.sistants, began at once to adjust his theodolite, and fix stakes in the ice. While he was thus engaged, Captain Wopper regarded the Mer de Glace with a gaze of fixedness so intense as to draw on him the attention and arouse the curiosity of his friends.
”D'you see anything curious, Captain?” asked Emma, who chanced to stand beside him.
”Coorious--eh?” repeated the Captain slowly, without altering his gaze or adding to his reply.
”Monsieur le Capitaine is lost in consternation,” said Nita, with a smile.
”I think, Miss h.o.r.etzki,” said Lewis, ”that you probably mean _admiration_.”
”How you knows w'at I mean?” demanded Nita, quickly.
”Ha! a very proper and pertinent question,” observed Slingsby, in an audible though under tone.
”I nevair do put _pertinent_ questions, sir,” said Nita, turning her black eyes sharply, though with something of a twinkle in them, on the mad artist.
Poor Slingsby began to explain, but Nita cut him short by turning to Lewis and again demanding, ”How you knows w'at I mean?”
”The uniform propriety of your thoughts, Mademoiselle,” replied Lewis, with a continental bow, and an air of pretended respect, ”induces me to suppose that your words misinterpret them.”
Nita's knowledge of English was such that this remark gave her only a hazy idea of the youth's meaning; she accepted it, however, as an apologetic explanation, and ordered him to awaken the Captain and find out from him what it was that so riveted his attention.
”You hear my orders,” said Lewis, laying his hand with a slap on the Captain's shoulder. ”What are you staring at?”
”Move!” murmured the Captain, returning as it were to consciousness with a long deep sigh, ”it don't move an inch.”
”_What_ does not move?” said Lawrence, who had been a.s.sisting to adjust the theodolite, and came forward at the moment.
”The ice, to be sure,” answered the Captain. ”I say, Professor, do 'ee mean to tell me that the whole of that there Mairdy-gla.s.s is movin'?”
”I do,” answered the Professor, pausing for a minute in his arrangements, and looking over his spectacles at the Captain with an amused expression.
”Then,” returned the Captain, with emphasis, ”I think you'll find that you're mistaken.”
”Ha! Captain Weeper--”
”Wopper,” said the Captain.
”Wopper,” repeated the Professor, ”you are not the first who has expressed disbelief in what he cannot see, and you will a.s.suredly not be the last; but if you will wait I will convince you.”
”Very good,” replied the Captain, ”I'm open to conviction.”
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