Part 85 (1/2)

At last the dawn succeeded the dark and rainy night; Isaure's guide, who had always taken pains to avoid pa.s.sing through villages or near inhabited houses, stopped with the girl on the slope of a mountain, looked about him and said:

”Let us rest here until we can see a little better; I do not think that I can be mistaken; we must be near the end of our journey. An hour more at most. But here is the daylight, and we must not go astray.”

He sat down on the ground, and Isaure did the same, seating herself a few steps away. Depressed and dejected, she dropped her head upon her breast and did not utter a word. The vagabond looked at her a moment and then turned his face in another direction, saying:

”She is not in the mood for talking; I can understand that.”

After a quarter of an hour, they could see to recognize the different roads. Isaure's companion smiled and said:

”I was not mistaken. I know this country so well. I have travelled all over it so many times in my youth and also within the last few months--Come, my girl, forward; one league more, and you will be able to rest as long as you please.”

Isaure rose and took her guide's arm once more. They descended the mountain, then turned to the left, along the narrow, winding path cut in the side of the cliff. Every moment their road became more difficult; they were in an arid, uncultivated region, where man seemed never to have trodden; only at rare intervals did they perceive a shepherd's hut, and the wild goats that sometimes pa.s.sed near them fled at their approach, as if unaccustomed to the presence of man. After walking a long while through this deserted tract, they found themselves at the entrance of a path running between two very high cliffs, which were so near together at the top that the daylight hardly reached the narrow path, which was more than eighty feet below their summits.

Along this dark and gloomy way, the vagabond guided Isaure's steps; the girl shuddered as she entered that defile which the cliffs seemed to threaten to fill up.

”Oh! mon Dieu!--is this the way?” she said, trembling as she spoke.

”Yes, this is the way, and we have arrived,” replied her companion, stopping in front of a small wooden house on the left of the path, close against the cliff, which overhung it; externally it resembled the habitation of a quarryman.

Isaure gazed at the wretched structure, which she presumed was to be her abode, but she said nothing; she allowed her tears to fall in silence and made no further attempts to move by her prayers the man who had brought her to that wild spot.

Judging from its outside, the house seemed to be of little extent; it had one floor above the ground, with a window under the roof. Below, there was a single window by the side of the door; and everything was in such a dilapidated state that it seemed that one might overturn the wretched hovel with a kick.

Isaure's companion placed the sword and bundle on a wooden bench beside the door; then he knocked and shouted in a voice which echoed loudly along the path:

”Hola! Charlot! Are you still asleep, you sluggard? Get up; it is your friend; it is the vagabond!”

For some time, not a sound was heard; at last they could distinguish slow and heavy steps, which seemed to come from the back of the house.

They approached, however; the door opened and a little man of some sixty years, lean and lank, of a livid pallor, and with red-rimmed eyes, whose expression was lifeless and stupid, appeared on the threshold of the wooden house, with his feet and part of his legs bare, but with the rest of his body covered with goat-skins held in place by leather thongs, while upon his head he wore the brimless crown of an old straw hat.

This man, whom Isaure's companion had called Charlot, showed neither surprise nor curiosity as he stared at the persons in front of his abode, but he held out his hand to the vagabond, saying in a slow, guttural voice:

”Ah! it is you? It is a long time since you came to see me.”

”Yes, true, but this time I think I have come to see you for a long time,” replied Isaure's guide; ”I have brought you some company, as you see.”

As he spoke, he pointed to the girl, at whom Charlot glanced indifferently, saying:

”Oh, yes! it's a woman!”

”But let us go in, first of all; we shall have time enough to talk then,” said the vagabond, motioning to Isaure to enter the house. The poor girl had difficulty in determining to comply; she cast a glance backward; she was afraid that she was looking at the sky for the last time; but her companion pushed her roughly, and she was soon in Charlot's disgusting abode, the door of which was instantly closed behind her.

The interior of the house consisted of a room of considerable size, on the lower floor, with several beams in the centre, supporting the upper floor; on the left was a huge fireplace, in which a man could have stood without stooping; on the right there was a staircase leading to the room above. A few stools, several earthen vessels and some straw composed the furniture.

Isaure could hardly see, her eyes were so full of tears; she seated herself in the corner of the room, where the daylight hardly penetrated, because the cliff hung far over the house. She supposed that she was to be taken to the upper room, and waited silently till she should learn her fate; but the vagabond made a sign to Charlot, who thereupon went to the other end of the room, and, pus.h.i.+ng aside one of the boards of the part.i.tion, disclosed to view a pa.s.sage much better lighted than the interior of the house.

”Come this way,” said Isaure's guide, motioning to her to rise; she obeyed; he led her through that narrow opening and she found herself at one end of an excavation, where she was overjoyed to see the sky once more. This excavation, which was thirty feet in circ.u.mference, was surrounded on all sides by the earth; it resembled the bottom of a well, except that it was much larger; but the light which came from above was much stronger than it was inside of the house, because there was nothing above to shut it out from that species of quarry. At one end of this place, a second house had been built, also of wood, but it consisted only of a ground floor. It was this retreat, undiscoverable to the eye of travellers, that the young girl, who had always lived in a fertile and lovely valley, was forced to enter.