The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [251]
“‘Sblood! Mr. Provost, it is no business for a soldier to hang witches. The mob still rages yonder. I must leave you to your own devices. You will not object to my rejoining my company, who are left without a captain.”
This voice was that of Phœbus de Châteaupers. She underwent an indescribable revulsion of feeling. So he was there,—her friend, her protector, her stay, her refuge, her Phoebus! She rose, and before her mother could prevent her, flew to the window, crying,—
“Phœbus! help, my Phoebus!”
Phœbus was no longer there.22 He had just galloped round the corner of the Rue de la Coutellerie. But Tristan was not yet gone.
The recluse flung herself upon her daughter with a roar. She dragged her violently back, digging her nails into her neck. A tigress does not look twice when the safety of her young is in question. But it was too late. Tristan had seen her.
“Ha! ha!” cried he, with a laugh which bared all his teeth, and made his face look like the muzzle of a wolf, “two mice in the trap!”
“I thought as much,” said the soldier.
Tristan clapped him on the shoulder, “You are a famous cat! Come,” he added, “where is Henriet Cousin?”
A man who had neither the dress nor the manner of a soldier stepped from the ranks. He wore a motley garb of brown and grey, his hair was smooth and lank, his sleeves were of leather, and in his huge hand was a bundle of rope. This man always accompanied Tristan, who always accompanied Louis XI.
“My friend,” said Tristan l‘Hermite, “I presume that this is the witch we are seeking. You will hang her for me. Have you your ladder?”
“There is one yonder under the shed of the Maison-aux-Piliers,” replied the man. “Are we to do the business on this gallows?” he continued, pointing to the stone gibbet.
“Yes.”
“Ho! ho!” rejoined the man, with a coarse laugh even more bestial than that of the provost; “we sha‘n’t have far to go.”
“Despatch!” said Tristan; “you can laugh afterwards.”
Meantime, since Tristan had seen her daughter, and all hope was lost, the recluse had not spoken a word. She had cast the poor gipsy, almost lifeless, into the corner of the cell, and resumed her place at the window, her hands clinging to the sides of the frame like two claws. In this position her eyes wandered boldly over the soldiers, the light of reason having once more faded from them. When Henriet Cousin approached her refuge, she glared so savagely at him that he shrank back.
“Sir,” said he, returning to the provost, “which am I to take?”
“The young one.”
“So much the better; for the old one seems hard to manage.”
“Poor little dancer with the goat!” said the old sergeant of the watch.
Henriet Cousin again advanced to the window. The mother’s eye made his own fall. He said somewhat timidly,—
“Madame,—”
She interrupted him in very low but furious tones:
“What do you want?”
“Not you,” said he; “it is the other.”
“What other?”
“The young one.”
She began to wag her head, crying,—
“There’s nobody here! there’s nobody here! there’s nobody here!”
“Yes, there is!” rejoined the hangman, “and you know it well. Let me have the young one. I don’t want to harm you.”
She said with a strange sneer,—
“Ah! you don’t want to harm me!”
“Let me have the other, madame; it is the provost’s will.”
She repeated with a foolish look,—
“There’s nobody here!”
“I tell you there is!” replied the hangman; “we all saw that there were two of you.”
“Look then!” said the recluse, with a sneer. “Put your head in at the window.”
The hangman scrutinized the mother’s nails, and dared not venture.
“Despatch!” cried Tristan, who had ranged his men in a ring around the Rat-Hole, and himself sat on horseback near the gibbet.
Henriet returned to the provost once more, utterly out of countenance. He had laid his rope on the ground,