"

"To be sure, yes; I forgot, ma'am. Yussuf made a careful investigation
of the mouth of the passage where it opens upon the side of the
precipice; in fact, I went out with him. The track is many feet deep in
snow, and it would be utter folly to attempt to escape."

"Oh, dear me!" sighed Mrs Chumley.

"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."

Lawrence had been handling a shovel, throwing snow away from the base of
an old Greek column, and he s