Jacques Charmolue interrupted her.
“If it please you, gentlemen, we will proceed to examine the goat.”
Such was indeed the other prisoner. Nothing was simpler at that time than to bring a suit for witchcraft against an animal. Among other details, we find in the provost’s accounts for 1466 a curious item of the costs of the trial of Gillet-Soulart and his sow, “executed for their demerits,” at Corbeil. Everything is set down,—the cost of the pen in which the sow was imprisoned, the five hundred bundles of short fagots brought from the port of Morsant, the three pints of wine and the bread for the victim’s last repast, fraternally shared by the executioner; even the eleven days’ feeding and keep of the sow, at eight Paris pence each. Sometimes they went even beyond animals. The capitularies of Charlemagne and Louis the Debonair inflict severe penalties upon those fiery phantoms who take the liberty of appearing in mid-air.
Meantime the king’s proxy to the Ecclesiastical Court cried aloud, “If the devil possessing this goat, and which has resisted every exorcism, persist in his evil deeds, if he terrify the court with them, we warn him that we shall be compelled to send him to the gibbet or the stake.”
Gringoire was in a cold perspiration. Charmolue took from a table the gipsy girl’s tambourine, and presenting it to the goat in a particular way, he asked the creature: “What time is it?”
The goat looked at him with an intelligent eye, lifted her gilded hoof, and struck seven blows. It was indeed seven o‘clock. A movement of terror ran through the crowd.
Gringoire could not restrain himself.
“She is lost!” he cried aloud; “you see that she doesn’t know what she is doing.”
“Silence among the people at the end of the hall!” said the usher, sharply.
Jacques Charmolue, by the aid of the same maneuvers with the tambourine, made the goat perform various other tricks as to the day of the month, the month of the year, etc., which the reader has already witnessed. And, by an optical illusion common to judicial debates, those same spectators who had perhaps more than once applauded the innocent pranks of Djali in the public streets, were terrified by them within the walls of the Palace of Justice. The goat was clearly the devil.
It was still worse when, the king’s proxy having emptied out upon the floor a certain leather bag full of movable letters, which Djali wore about her neck, the goat selected with her foot the separate letters spelling out the fatal name “Ph?bus.” The spells to which the captain had fallen a victim seemed to be irresistibly demonstrated; and, in all eyes, the gipsy girl—that enchanting dancer who had so often dazzled the passers-by with her grace—was nothing but a horrible witch.
Moreover, she gave no sign of life; neither the pretty pranks of Djali, nor the threats of the magistrates, nor the muttered curses of the audience seemed to reach her ear.
In order to rouse her, an officer was forced to shake her most unmercifully, the president raising his voice solemnly as he said:— “Girl, you are of the gipsy race, addicted to sorceries. You, with your accomplice, the bewitched goat involved in the charge, did, upon the night of the 29th of March last, murder and stab, in league with the powers of darkness, by the aid of charms and spells, a captain of the king’s troops, one Phoebus de Chateaupers. Do you persist in denying this?”
“Horrible!” cried the young girl, hiding her face in her hands. “My Ph?bus! oh, this is indeed hell!”
“Do you persist in your denial?” coldly asked the president.
“Certainly I deny it!” said she, in terrible accents; and she rose to her full height, her eyes flashing.
The president continued bluntly:— “Then how do you explain the facts alleged against you?”
She answered in a broken voice,—
“I have told you already. I do not know. It was a priest,—a priest whom I do not know; an infernal priest who has long pursued me!”
“There it is,” said the judge; “the goblin monk.”
“Oh, my lords, have pity! I am only a poor girl.”
“A gipsy,” said the judge.
Master Jacques Charmolue said gently,— “In view of the prisoner’s painful obstinacy, I demand that she be put to the rack.”
“Agreed,” said the president.
The wretched girl shuddered. Still, she rose at the order of the halberdiers, and walked with quite firm step, preceded by Charmolue and the priests of the Bishop’s Court, between two rows of halberds, towards a low door, which suddenly opened and closed behind her, making the unhappy Gringoire feel as if she had been devoured by some awful monster.