All the while the water in the gorge moaned or roared. It was
growing very dusk when the walls on either hand rose like the sides of a
pit.
I was beginning to ask myself in no cheerful mood whether the map had not
deceived me as to the whereabouts of St. Bazile, when, to my relief, I
heard a church bell ringing not very far down the stream. It was the
angelus. How often has this clear, solemn, heart-touching, and consoling
sound been to me what a familiar beacon is to the doubting mariner! Only
wanderers in desolate places know the sentiment that it carries through the
evening air. More welcome than ever before did it seem in this black gorge.
I pushed on, and presently the gloomy walls widened out. Turning a bend
of the torrent, I stood in a glow of ruddy light that streamed from the
yawning mouth of an open-air oven that had recently been filled with dry
broom and kindled for the night's baking. Here was a fresh delight, for
there is nothing more cheering, more full of homely sentiment in the dusk,
than the view of such a blazing oven.
This, then, was the village of St. Bazile de la Roche, to give its full
name. It could scarcely have boasted a hundred houses.
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