“We must bear our lot patiently till the first thaw comes, and then try and make our way over the mountains.”
These were the words of wisdom, and for long weary weeks the prisoners had to be content with their position. The brigands did a little snow-cutting, and then passed the rest of their time sleeping by the fires they kept up night and day. Food was plentiful, and the chief behaved civilly enough, often paying his prisoners a visit, after which they were entirely left to their own resources.
“We ought to be low-spirited captives,” Mr Burne used to say, as he beat his hands together to keep them warm; “but somehow nobody seems very miserable.”
And this was a fact, for every day the professor kept them busy with shovels digging away the snow from some piece of ruin he wished to measure and draw, while after the chief had been, and noted what was done, he said something half contemptuously to his men, and no interference took place.
Day after day, with a few intervals of heavy snow and storm, the dazzling sunshine continued, with the brilliant blue sky, and the mountains around looking like glistening silver.
Everywhere the same deep pure white snow, in waves, in heaps, in drifts, and deep furrows, silvery in the day, and tinged with rose, purple, scarlet, and gold as the sun went down.
They were so shut in that an army of men could not have dug a way to them; and, knowing this, the brigands dropped into a torpid state, like so many hibernating bears, while the professor’s work went on.
“Do you know, Lawrence,” he said one day, laying down his pencil to rub his blue fingers, “I think I shall make a great book of this when I have finished it. I have got the castle done, the principal walls, the watch-towers and gates, and if there was not so much snow I should have finished the temple; but, bless my heart, boy, how different you do look!”
“Different, sir!” said Lawrence laughing. “Oh, I suppose the wind has made my nose red.”
“I did not mean that: I meant altogether. You look so well.”