While he was thus occupied, the Professor assisted Lawrence in fixing the theodolite, and then, leaving him, went to a neighbouring heap of débris followed by the Captain, whom he stationed there.
“I want you,” he said, “to keep a good look-out and warn me as to which way I must run to avoid falling rocks. Antoine has dislodged many of them, but some he cannot reach. These enemies must be watched.”
So saying, the Professor placed a stake and an auger against his breast, buttoned his coat over them, and shouldered his axe.
“You don’t mean to say that you’re agoing to go under that cliff?” exclaimed the Captain, in great surprise, laying his hand on the Professor’s arm and detaining him.
“My friend,” returned the man of science, “do not detain me. Time is precious just now. You have placed yourself under my orders for the day, and, being a seaman, must understand the value of prompt obedience. Do as I bid you.”
He turned and went off at a swinging pace towards the foot of the ice-cliff, while the Captain, in a state of anxiety, amounting almost to consternation, sat down on a boulder, took off his hat, wiped his heated brow, pronounced the Professor as mad as a March hare, and prepared to discharge his duties as “the look-out.”
Although cool as a cucumber in all circumstances at sea, where he knew every danger and how to meet or avoid it, the worthy Captain now almost lost self-control and became intensely agitated and anxious, insomuch that he gave frequent and hurried false alarms, which he no less hurriedly attempted to correct, sometimes in nautical terms, much to the confusion of the Professor.
“Hallo! hi! look out—starboard—sta–a–arboard!” he shouted wildly, on beholding a rock about the size of a chest of drawers spring from the heights above and rush downward, with a smoke of ice-dust and débris following, “quick! there! no! port! Port! I say it’s—”
Before he could finish the sentence, the mass had fallen a long way to the right of the Professor, and lay quiet on the ice not far from where the Captain stood.
In spite of the interruptions thus caused, the lower stake was fixed in a few minutes. The Professor then swung his axe vigorously, and began to cut an oblique stair-case in the ice up the sheer face of the precipice.