"That is the sign that the wise woman is ready.

We have to follow it.

It will lead us to her." The light was dim enough, but it showed plainly in the pitchy darkness of the passage, and seemed to be considerably above them.
"We must mount the stairs," whispered Cherry, feeling her way cautiously to the foot of the rickety flight; and the cousins mounted carefully, the dun light, which they did not see--only the reflections it cast brightening the dimness--going on before, until they reached an upper chamber, the door of which stood wide open, a soft radiance shining out, whilst a strange monotonous chanting was heard within.
Upon the threshold of the room stood a huge black cat with bristling tail and fiery eyes.

It seemed as though he would dispute the entrance of the strangers, and Cuthbert said to himself that he had never seen an uglier-looking brute of the kind since the monster wildcat he had killed in the forest about his home.

He drew Cherry a pace backwards, for the creature looked crouching for a spring.
"It is the wise woman's cat, her familiar spirit!" whispered the girl, in a very low voice.