"My dears," said Mr. Balcombe one morning, "I am going to Longwood to-morrow, and the Emperor has expressly asked me to bring you. He has something curious to show you."
"What can it be?" the girls asked each other. This special invitation, promising a special pleasure, made them eager to start when the next morning came.
When they reached Longwood with their father they found Napoleon examining a machine whose use they could guess.
"Come, come, young ladies," the great man cried, when he caught sight of them, "come see me make ice. You have not been here for a long time, Mees Betsy, what is the matter?"
"Oh, I am sorry! What foolish thing did you do?"
"Oh, Jane and I walked with Captain M. to call on Mrs. Wilks. We went over the mountain, two thousand feet, and also across Francis Plain, and down into the valley, up the mountain ridges."
Napoleon expressed his astonishment at the extent of their walk.
"Yes, we were nearly dead when we reached Plantation House, but the Lady Governess and her daughter there were so kind, and at noon we went to Fairyland."
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.
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.