He was a venerable looking old man, with a long white beard, and seemed to be shivering with cold, despite the great, thick, woollen cloak in which he was wrapped.

The child, a wild-looking little creature, whose scanty, tattered clothing was but a poor protection against the stinging cold, shrunk timidly from notice, and tried to hide himself behind his aged charge.

Isabelle's tender heart was moved to pity at the sight of so much misery, and she stopped in front of the forlorn little group while she searched in her pocket for her purse--not finding it there she turned to her companion and asked him to lend her a little money for the poor old blind beggar, which the baron hastened to do--though he was thoroughly out of patience with his whining jeremiads--and, to prevent Isabelle's coming in actual contact with him, stepped forward himself to deposit the coins in his wooden bowl.

Thereupon, instead of tearfully thanking his benefactor and invoking blessings upon his head, after the usual fashion of such gentry, the blind man--to Isabelle's inexpressible alarm--suddenly sprang to his feet, and straightening himself up with a jerk, opened his arms wide, as a vulture spreads its wings for flight, gathered up his ample cloak about his shoulders with lightning rapidity and flung it from him with a quick, sweeping motion like that with which the fisherman casts his net.

The huge, heavy mantle spread itself out like a dense cloud directly above de Sigognac, and falling over and about him enveloped him from head to foot in its long, clinging folds, held firmly down by the lead with which its edges were weighted--making him a helpless prisoner--depriving him at once of sight and breath, and of the use of his hands and feet.