Ah, yes!
I lost her, that lasted fifteen years, and then I found her again, and that lasted a minute!
And they would take her from me again!
And now, when she is beautiful, when she is grown up, when she speaks to me, when she loves me; it is now that they would come to devour her, before my very eyes, and I her mother!
Oh! no! these things are not possible.
The good God does not permit such things as that.”
Here the cavalcade appeared to halt, and a voice was heard to say in the distance,—
“This way, Messire Tristan!
The priest says that we shall find her at the Rat-Hole.”
The noise of the horses began again.
The recluse sprang to her feet with a shriek of despair.
“Fly! fly! my child!
All comes back to me.
You are right.
It is your death!
Horror!
Maledictions!
Fly!”
She thrust her head through the window, and withdrew it again hastily.
“Remain,” she said, in a low, curt, and lugubrious tone, as she pressed the hand of the gypsy, who was more dead than alive. “Remain!
Do not breathe!
There are soldiers everywhere.
You cannot get out.
It is too light.”
Her eyes were dry and burning.
She remained silent for a moment; but she paced the cell hurriedly, and halted now and then to pluck out handfuls of her gray hairs, which she afterwards tore with her teeth.
Suddenly she said:
“They draw near.
I will speak with them.
Hide yourself in this corner.
They will not see you.
I will tell them that you have made your escape. That I released you, i’ faith!”
She set her daughter (down for she was still carrying her), in one corner of the cell which was not visible from without.
She made her crouch down, arranged her carefully so that neither foot nor hand projected from the shadow, untied her black hair which she spread over her white robe to conceal it, placed in front of her her jug and her paving stone, the only articles of furniture which she possessed, imagining that this jug and stone would hide her.
And when this was finished she became more tranquil, and knelt down to pray.
The day, which was only dawning, still left many shadows in the Rat-Hole.
At that moment, the voice of the priest, that infernal voice, passed very close to the cell, crying,—
“This way, Captain Phoebus de Chateaupers.”
At that name, at that voice, la Esmeralda, crouching in her corner, made a movement.
“Do not stir!” said Gudule.
She had barely finished when a tumult of men, swords, and horses halted around the cell.
The mother rose quickly and went to post herself before her window, in order to stop it up.
She beheld a large troop of armed men, both horse and foot, drawn up on the Greve.
The commander dismounted, and came toward her.
“Old woman!” said this man, who had an atrocious face, “we are in search of a witch to hang her; we were told that you had her.”
The poor mother assumed as indifferent an air as she could, and replied,—
“I know not what you mean.”
The other resumed,
“Tete Dieu!
What was it that frightened archdeacon said?