8/15 Certainly the rain was stopping; the wind no longer howled. Up we went towards those ragged walls and great, vacant windows. We reached the summit; for two minutes the horses trotted; then a sudden halt, and my lad's face at the carriage door. We were at the entrance to an unpaved street of squalid hovels, a street which the rain had converted into a muddy river, so that, on quitting the vehicle, I stepped into running water up to my ankles. Before me was a long low cabin, with a row of four or five windows and no upper storey; a miserable hut of rubble and plaster, stained with ancient dirt and, at this moment, looking soaked with moisture. |