"Is there any path by which I can come down and speak to you?"

He looked up at me without replying, and I looked down at him
without pressing him too soon with a repetition of my idle
question. Just then there came a vague vibration in the earth and
air, quickly changing into a violent pulsation, and an oncoming
rush that caused me to start back, as though it had a force to draw
me down. When such vapor as rose to my height from this rapid
train had passed me, and was skimming away over the landscape, I
looked down again, and saw him refurling the flag he had shown
while the train went by.

I repeated my inquiry. After a pause, during which he seemed to
regard me with fixed attention, he motioned with his rolled-up flag
towards a point on my level, some two or three hundred yards
distant. I called down to him, "All right!" and made for that
point. There, by dint of looking closely about me, I found a rough
zigzag descending path notched out, which I followed.

The cutting was extremely deep, and unusually precipitate. It was
made through a clammy stone, that became oozier and wetter as I
went down. For these reasons, I found the way long enough to give
me time to recall a singular air of reluctance or compulsion with
which he had pointed out the path.

When I came down low enough upon the zigzag descent to see him
again, I saw that he was standing between the rails on the way by
which the train had lately passed, in an attitude as if he were
waiting for me to appear. He had his left hand at his chin, and
that left elbow rested on his right hand, crossed over his breast.