The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [202]
“What is that?” said the priest.
Almost as he spoke he felt himself grasped by a vigorous arm. The cell was dark; he could not distinguish exactly who held him; but he heard teeth chattering with rage, and there was just enough light mingled with the darkness for him to see the broad blade of a knife gleam above his head.
He thought he recognized the figure of Quasimodo. He supposed that it could be no other. He remembered having stumbled, as he entered, over a bundle lying across the outside of the door. But as the new-comer did not utter a word, he knew not what to think. He flung himself upon the arm which held the knife, crying. “Quasimodo!” He forgot, in this moment of distress, that Quasimodo was deaf.
In the twinkling of an eye the priest was stretched on the floor, and felt a heavy knee pressed against his breast. By the angular imprint of that knee, he knew Quasimodo; but what was he to do? How was he also to be recognized by the hunchback? Night made the deaf man blind.
He was lost. The young girl, pitiless as an enraged tigress, did not interpose to save him. The knife came nearer his head; it was a critical moment. All at once his adversary appeared to hesitate.
“No blood upon her!” said he, in a dull voice.
It was indeed the voice of Quasimodo.
Then the priest felt a huge hand drag him from the cell by the heels; he was not to die within those walls. Luckily for him, the moon had risen some moments before.
When they crossed the threshold, its pale rays fell upon the priest. Quasimodo looked him in the face, trembled, relaxed his hold, and shrank back.
The gipsy, who had advanced to the door of her cell, saw with surprise that the actors had suddenly changed parts. It was now the priest who threatened, and Quasimodo who implored.
The priest, who was overwhelming the deaf man with gestures of wrath and reproach, violently signed him to withdraw.
The deaf man bowed his head, then knelt before the gipsy’s door. “My lord,” said he, in grave, submissive tones, “do what you will afterwards; but kill me first!”
So saying, he offered his knife to the priest. The priest, beside himself with rage, rushed upon him. But the young girl was quicker than he. She tore the knife from Quasimodo’s hands, and uttered a frenzied laugh.
“Approach now!” she cried.
She held the blade high above her head. The priest stood irresolute. She would certainly have struck.
“You dare not touch me now, coward!” she exclaimed.
Then she added with a pitiless look, and knowing that her words would pierce the priest’s heart like a thousand red-hot irons,—
“Ah, I know that Phœbus is not dead!”
The priest threw Quasimodo to the ground with a kick, and rushed down the stairs quivering with rage.
When he had gone, Quasimodo picked up the whistle which had just saved the gipsy.
“It was getting rusty,” said he, returning it to her; then he left her alone.
The young girl, overcome by this violent scene, fell exhausted on her bed and burst into a flood of tears. Her horizon was again becoming overcast.
The priest, on his side, groped his way back to his cell.
That was sufficient. Dom Claude was jealous of Quasimodo.
He repeated musingly the fatal words: “No one else shall have her!”
BOOK TEN
CHAPTER I
Gringoire Has Several Capital Ideas in Succession in the Rue des Bernardins
When Pierre Gringoire saw the turn which this whole matter was taking, and that a rope, hanging, and other unpleasant things must certainly be the fate of the chief actors in the play, he no longer cared to meddle with it. The Vagrants, with whom he remained, considering that after all they were the best company to be found in Paris,—the Vagrants still retained their interest in the gipsy. He thought this very natural on the part of people who, like her, had no prospect but Charmolue and Torterue to which to look forward, and who did not, like him, roam through the realms of imagination upon the wings of Pegasus. He learned from their conversation that his bride of the broken jug had taken refuge in Notre-Dame, and