When Betsy had told her story, Napoleon explained the air-pumps and the process of ice-making. He was evidently proud of his own proficiency.
"Now, Mr. Balcombe, get an elementary chemistry for Miss Betsy and make her study every day, and the good O'Meara shall be her examiner."
While he talked Napoleon was watching the machine.
"Do try my ice," he exclaimed at last, when he had a cupful.
"Here, Mees Betsee, take this!" and he put a large piece in her mouth.
"Oh, Mees Betsee, why make such faces?"
This was the first ice that had ever been seen on the island, and those who had never been off St. Helena were naturally amazed when it was shown to them.
"It can't be frozen water," exclaimed Miss de F., a young St. Helena lady who had accompanied the Balcombes on this visit to Longwood; and she had to hold a piece in her hand before she believed it. Then she gave a little scream. The glassy substance was so cold at first that she was ready to drop it. A moment later when it began to melt and the water streamed down her fingers, she realized that she had actually seen a very strange thing, the turning of water into ice by artificial means.
Betsy long remembered the day when she had first seen the wonderful ice machine, and perhaps her remembrance of it was intensified because on that same morning Napoleon permitted her to cut from his coat an embroidered bugle, and the coat was the one he had worn at Waterloo. Napoleon himself was as pleased as a child with the ice machine, and to more than one person expressed his regret that he had not had it in Egypt, where its use would have saved the lives of many suffering soldiers.