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, pushing 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.
"This is your lodging from this time," said the vagabond, as he led Isaure into the house at the end of the excavation. "You see that it was not without reason that I chose to bring you here; this retreat can be found only by those who are familiar with it. People might search the house in front, on the path, and never suspect that there was another house behind. This place can be seen only by those who are up yonder on the cliff, eighty feet above us. But as that cliff is frightfully steep and is on the path to nowhere, no one ever thinks of climbing it, only from time to time a wild goat. So I am perfectly easy in my mind, no one will find you here. This is not so charming and cheerful a home as that which you have occupied, I agree; but what would you have? I had no choice. So make the best of it, and try to accustom yourself to your new quarters. You will be entirely free to follow your own devices from morning to night--except as to going out. Here is a room of good size, where you can make yourself at home; there is a bed, a table, a bench--it is the best furnished room in the house. If I can find a small piece of looking-gla.s.s, I will bring it to you; I know that women think a great deal of that. Try to calm yourself and to dry your tears; I tell you again, your virtue is safer here than it is in the neighborhood of the White House. This place seems horrible, ghastly to you now! But you will become accustomed to it, because one gets used to everything!"
Having delivered this speech, the vagabond left Isaure alone in her dismal abode, and returned with Charlot to the house on the path. There, seating himself in front of his taciturn friend, he said to him:
"Charlot, I saved your life once, two months ago, when, as you were chasing a goat, you were on the point of rolling over a precipice, and I, running after you, succeeded in reaching you my stick and pulling you away from the hole into which you were about to fall."
"I haven"t forgotten it," replied the old shepherd in a low voice.
"True," rejoined the vagabond, "since that time you have shown the most absolute devotion to me; when I had no bread, I came here, and I was sure that you would share with me all that you possessed. That is well, Charlot; you are grateful, you have treated me better than many wealthy gentlemen have done, and many women of the world; but that is not enough; to-day you must allow me to make use of your house as I choose.--Here is money for it--take all that you wish."
The vagabond spread out before the old shepherd"s eye the money that he had taken from Isaure"s house; Charlot looked at it indifferently and replied simply:
"If I haven"t any house, where shall I live?"
"You will live here as always,--indeed, that is necessary; the girl will occupy the second house, and I shall sleep here, upstairs. But you must swear to me on your life, that you will tell no one that you have anybody living with you."
"Who should I tell? I never see anybody."
"But if by chance any travellers should come here, I shall retire at once to the house behind, and you will never disclose the existence of that secret dwelling."
"No, no!"
"Do you swear it?"
"Swear? I tell you no, that is enough."
"In truth, I place more faith in your promise than in other people"s oaths; but you do not take this money?"
"What for? I don"t want it."
"Well, I will give you some when you go to buy provisions. You will have to go a long distance, and buy at different places, in order not to arouse the slightest suspicion. With this sum and your skill in killing wild goats and in snaring birds, we have enough to live on for years.
Well, is it agreed? Do we live together?"
"Yes."
"And you will not mention us to anyone?"
"No."
"And you will never open your door to a traveller until I have gone to the house behind?"
"Never."
These arrangements completed, the vagabond ascended to the upper room, threw himself upon a heap of straw and went to sleep; the old shepherd, who pa.s.sed a large part of his time in slumber, did the same in the room below. Isaure alone remained awake, on her knees in the vile hovel to which she had been consigned; she held up her hands imploringly to heaven, she raised her eyes, whence the tears flowed in streams, and in her despair had not the strength to utter a single word.
x.x.xI