The old woman paused. A murmur of horror ran round the room.
“The phantom, the goat, and all that, savor of sorcery,” said one of Gringoire’s neighbors.
“So does that withered leaf!” added another.
“No doubt,” continued a third, “the girl was a witch, who was in league with the goblin monk to plunder officers.”
Gringoire himself was inclined to consider the whole story both terrible and probable.
“La Falourdel,” said the president, majestically, “have you nothing more to tell the court?”
“No, my lord,” replied the old woman, “except that in the report my house was called a dirty, rickety hut, which is an outrageous way to talk. The houses on the bridge are not much to look at, because there are so many people there; but all the same even butchers don’t scorn to live there, and some of them are rich folks, and married to very neat, handsome women.”
The magistrate who had reminded Gringoire of a crocodile now rose.
“Silence!” said he. “I beg you, gentlemen, not to lose sight of the fact that a dagger was found upon the prisoner. La Falourdel, did you bring that leaf into which the crownpiece which the evil spirit gave you was changed?”
“Yes, my lord,” replied she; “I found it. Here it is.”
An usher handed the dead leaf to the crocodile, who shook his head mournfully, and passed it to the president, who sent it on to the king’s proxy to the Ecclesiastical Court; and in this way it went the round of the room.
“It is a birch-leaf,” said Master Jacques Charmolue. This was a fresh proof of magic.
A councillor next took up the word.
“Witness, two men went upstairs together in your house. The black man,—whom you first saw disappear, and afterwards swim the Seine in a priest’s gown,—and the officer. Which of the two gave you the money?”
The old woman thought for a moment, and said, “It was the officer.”
A confused clamor ran through the crowd.
“Ah!” thought Gringoire, “that shakes my conviction.”
However, Master Philippe Lheulier, advocate extraordinary to the king, interfered afresh.
“I must remind you, gentlemen, that in his deposition, written at his bedside, the murdered officer, while he declares that he had a vague idea at the instant the man in black accosted him that it might easily be the goblin monk, added that the phantom had urged him to keep his rendezvous with the prisoner; and upon his remarking that he had no money, gave him the crown, which the said officer paid away to La Falourdel. Therefore, the crown was a coin from hell.”
This conclusive observation seemed to dispel all the doubts of Gringoire and the other skeptics in the audience.
“Gentlemen, you have the brief,” added the king’s advocate, sitting down; “you can consult the statement of Phoebus de Chateaupers.”
At the sound of this name the prisoner rose; her head appeared above the crowd. The terrified Gringoire recognized Esmeralda.
She was pale; her hair, once so gracefully braided and spangled with sequins, fell about her in disorder; her lips were livid; her hollow eyes were horrible. Alas!
“Ph?bus!” said she, wildly, “where is he? Oh, gentlemen, before you kill me, in pity tell me if he still lives!”
“Be silent, woman!” replied the president; “that does not con cern us.”
“Oh, have mercy! Tell me if he is alive!” she repeated, clasping her beautiful but emaciated hands; and her chains rattled as she moved.
“Well,” said the king’s advocate, drily, “he is dying! Are you satisfied?”
The wretched girl fell back upon her seat, voiceless, tearless, white as a waxen image.
The president leaned towards a man standing at his feet, with a golden cap and a black gown, a chain about his neck, and a wand in his hand.
“Usher, bring in the other prisoner.”
All eyes were turned upon a small door which opened, and to Gringoire’s great dismay a pretty goat, with gilded horns and hoofs, appeared. The dainty creature paused a moment on the threshold, stretching her neck as if, perched on the point of a rock, she had a vast horizon before her. All at once she saw the gipsy girl, and leaping over the table and the head of a clerk with two bounds, she was at her knees; then she curled herself gracefully at the feet of her mistress, imploring a word or a caress; but the prisoner remained motionless, and even poor Djali could not win a look from her.
“Why, but—That is the ugly beast I told you about,” said La Falourdel; “and I recognize the pair of them well enough!”