s, being engaged with her
dark-eyed friend, did not require his services, and observing that his
patron, Captain Wopper, held intercourse with the guide--in broken
English, because he, the guide, also spoke broken English--that Lawrence
and the Professor seemed capable of entertaining each other, that Lewis
and the artist, although dreadfully jealous of each other, were fain to
hold social intercourse, the ladies being inseparable, and that he,
Gillie, was therefore left to entertain himself he set about amusing
himself to the best of his power by keeping well in rear of the party
and scrambling up dangerous precipices, throwing stones at little birds,
charging shrubs and stabbing the earth with Emma's alpenstock,
immolating snails, rolling rocks down precipitous parts of the hill, and
otherwise exhibiting a tendency to sport with Nature--all of which he
did to music whistled by himself, and in happy forgetfulness of
everything save the business in hand. He was engaged in some apparently
difficult piece of fancy work, involving large boulders, when Lewis drew
attention to him.

"What can the imp be up to?" he said.

"Most likely worrying some poor reptile to death," said the artist,
removing his conical wideawake and fanning himself therewith. (Mr
Slingsby was very warm, his slender frame not being equal to his
indomitable spirit.)

"I think he is trying to break your alpenstock, Emma," observed Lewis.

There seemed to be truth in this, for Gillie, having fixed the staff as
a lever, was pulling at it with all his might. The projection of rock
on which he stood, and which overhung the zigzag road, was partially
concealed by bushes, so that the precise intention of his efforts could
not be discovered.

At that moment Antoine, the guide, turned to see what detained the
party, and instantly uttered a loud shout of alarm as he ran back to
them.

The warning or remonstrance came too late. Gillie had loosened an
enormous rock which had been on the point of falling, and with a throb
of exultation, which found vent in a suppressed squeal, he hurled a
mass, something about the size and weight of a cart of coals, down the
precipice.

But the current of Gillie's feelings was rudely changed when a shriek
from the ladies, and something between a roar and a yell from the
gentlemen, told that they had observed a man with a mule, who, in
ascending from the valley, had reached a spot which lay in the direct
line of the mini