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By Root 823 0

and the one above both open upon the water. As I say, I was spinning. I don’t know how I fell to thinking of the goblin monk, of whom the goat had reminded me; and then, that pretty girl was so queerly rigged out. All at once I heard a scream upstairs, and something fell on the floor, and the window opened. I ran to my window, which is just under it, and I saw a dark mass fall past me into the water. It was a phantom dressed like a priest. It was bright moonlight. I saw as plainly as possible. He swam away towards the City. Then, all in a tremble, I called the watch. Those gentlemen entered, and being somewhat merry, and not knowing what the matter was, they fell to beating me. But I soon explained things to them. We went upstairs, and what did we find? My poor room all stained with blood, the captain stretched out at full length with a dagger in his throat, the girl pretending to be dead, and the goat in a terrible fright. ‘Well done!’ said I; ‘it will take me more than a fortnight to scrub up these boards. I shall have to scrape them; it will be a dreadful piece of work!’ They carried off the officer,—poor young man!—and the girl, all disheveled and in disorder. But stay; the worst of all is that next day, when I went to get the crown to buy my tripe, I found a withered leaf in its place.”

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 Châteaupers.”

At the sound of this name the prisoner