“I’ll bet you ten thousand pounds you don’t,” returned the Captain, with an assured nod.
“Colours nailed!” said Lewis; “but I say, Captain,” he added, remonstratively, “I thought you were a sworn enemy to gambling. Isn’t betting gambling?”
“It is, young man,” answered the Captain, “but I always bet ten thousand pounds sterling, which I never mean to pay if I lose, nor to accept if I win—and that is not gambling. Put that in your pipe and smoke it; and if you’ll take my advice, you’ll go look after your friend Slingsby, who is gambolling up yonder in another fashion that will soon bring him to grief if he’s not stopped.”
All eyes were turned towards the mad artist, who, finding that his advances to Mademoiselle Nita were not well received, had for the time forsaken her, and returned to his first (and professional) love. In wooing her, he had clambered to an almost inaccessible cliff from which he hoped to obtain a very sketchable view of the Mer de Glace, and, when Captain Wopper drew attention to him, was making frantic efforts to swing himself by the branch of a tree to a projecting rock, which was so slightly attached to its parent cliff that his weight would in all probability have hurled it and himself down the precipice.
The remonstrative shouts of his friends, however, induced him to desist, and he sat down to work in a less perilous position.
Meanwhile the Professor, having completed his preliminary preparations, ordered his assistants to go and “fix the stakes in the ice.”
It had been arranged that while the scientific experiments were in progress, the young ladies should ramble about the neighbourhood in search of flowers and plants, under the care of Lewis, until two o’clock, at which hour all were to assemble at the Montanvert hotel for luncheon, Captain Wopper and Lawrence resolving to remain and assist, or at least observe, the Professor. The former, indeed, bearing in mind his great and ruling wish even in the midst of scientific doubt and inquiries, had suggested that the latter should also accompany the ladies, the country being somewhat rugged, and the ladies—especially Miss Emma—not being very sure-footed; but Lawrence, to his disappointment, had declined, saying that the ladies had a sufficient protector in the gallant Lewis, and that Miss Emma was unquestionably the surest-footed of the whole party.
Lawrence therefore remained, and, at the Professor’s request, accompanied the party who were to fix the stakes on the ice.
As this operation was attended with considerable difficulty and some danger, we will describe the process.
Finding that the spot which he had first chosen for his observations was not a very good one, the Professor changed his position to a point farther down on the steep sloping rocks that form the left bank of the Glacier des Bois. Here the theodolite was fixed. This instrument as even our young readers may probably know, is a small telescope attached to a stand with three long legs, and having spirit-levels, by means of which it can be fixed in a position, if we may say so, of exact flatness with reference to the centre of the earth. Within the telescope are two crossed hairs of a spider’s-web, so fine as to be scarcely visible to the naked eye, and so arranged that their crossing-point is exactly in the centre of the tube. By means of pivots and screws the telescope can be moved up or down, right or left, without in the smallest degree altering the flatness or position of its stand. On looking through the telescope the delicate threads can be distinctly seen, and the point where they cross can be brought to bear on any distant object.