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 passed 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:
"Holà! 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: