The goat raised his forefoot and struck once upon the tambourine held
out to him.
The crowd applauded.
"Djali, what day of the month is it?"
The goat struck the tambourine six times.
The people thought it was wonderful.
"There is sorcery in this!" said a forbidding voice in the crowd. It was
the voice of the priest Claude Frolic.
Then the gypsy began to take up a collection in her tambourine, and
presently the crowd dispersed.
Later in the day, when darkness had fallen, as the gypsy and her goat
were proceeding to their lodgings, Quasimodo seized hold of the girl and
ran off with her.
"Murder! Murder!" shrieked the unfortunate gypsy.
"Halt! Let the girl go, you ruffian!" exclaimed, in a voice of thunder,
a horseman who appeared suddenly from a cross street. It was a captain
of the King's Archers, armed from head to foot, and sword in hand.
He tore the gypsy girl from the arms of the astonished Quasimodo, and
placed her across his saddle. Before the hunchback could recover from
his surprise, a squadron of royal troops, going on duty as extra
watchmen, surrounded him, and he was seized and bound.
The gypsy girl sat gracefully upon the officer's saddle, placing both
hands upon the young man's shoulders, and gazing at him fixedly. Then
breaking the silence, she said tenderly, "What is your name, M.
l'Officier?"
"Captain Phaebus de Châteaupers, at your service, my pretty maid!" said
the officer, drawing himself up.
"Thank you."
And while Captain Phaebus twirled his mustache, she slipped from his
horse and vanished like a flash of lightning.
"The bird has flown, but the bat remains, captain," said one of the
troopers, tightening Quasimodo's bonds.
Quasimodo being deaf, understood nothing of the proceedings in the court
next day, when he was charged with creating a disturbance, and of
rebellion and disloyalty to the King's Archers.
The chief magistrate, also being deaf and at the same time anxious to
conceal his infirmity, understood nothing that Quasimodo said.
The hunchback was sentenced to be taken to the pillory in the Grève, to
be beaten, and to be kept there for two hours.
Quasimodo remained utterly impassive, while the crowd which yesterday
had hailed him as Lord of Misrule now greeted him with hooting and
derision.
The pillory was a simple cube of masonry, some ten feet high, and hollow
within. A horizontal wheel of oak was at the top, and to this the victim
was bound in a kneeling posture. A very steep flight of stone steps led
to the wheel.
All the people laughed merrily when Quasimodo was seen in the pillory;
and when he had been beaten by the public executioner, they added to the
wretched sufferer's misery by insults, and, occasionally, stones. There
was hardly a spectator in the crowd that had not some grudge, real or
imagined, against the hunchback bell-ringer of Notre Dame.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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