The gypsy girl smilingly pressed the neck of the gourd to Quasimodo’s jagged mouth.

He drank long draughts; his thirst was feverish.  When he had done, the poor wretch put out his black lips to kiss the hand which had helped him.  But the girl, remembering the violent attempt of the previous night, and not quite free from distrust, withdrew her hand quickly.

Quasimodo fixed upon her a look of reproach and unspeakable sorrow.

The sight of this beautiful girl succouring a man in the pillory so deformed and wretched seemed sublime, and the people were immediately affected by it.  They clapped their hands, and shouted, “Noel!  Noel!”

Esmeralda—­for that was the name of the gypsy girl—­came down from the pillory, and a mad woman called out, “Come down!  Come down!  You will go up again!”

Presently Quasimodo was released, and the mob thereupon dispersed.

III.—­The Archdeacon’s Passion

In spite of the austerity of Claude Frollo’s life, pious people suspected him of magic.  His silence and secretiveness encouraged this feeling.  He was known to be at work in the long hours of the night in his cell in Notre Dame, and he wandered about the streets like a spectre.

Whenever the gypsy girl placed her carpet within sight of Claude Frollo’s cell and began to dance the priest turned from his books and, resting his head in his hands, gazed at her.  Then he would go down into the public thoroughfares, lured on by some burning passion within.

Quasimodo, too, would desist from his bell-ringing to look at the dancing girl.

The hotter the fire of passion burned within the priest the farther Esmeralda moved from him.  He discovered that she was in love with Captain Phoebus, her rescuer, and this knowledge added fuel to the flames.

One purpose now was clear to him.  He would give up all for the dancing girl, and she should be his.  But if Esmeralda refused to come to him, then the archdeacon resolved that she should die before she married anyone else.  At any time he could have her arrested on the charge of sorcery, and the goat’s tricks would easily procure a conviction.

Captain Phoebus, having invited Esmeralda to meet him at a wineshop, the priest followed the couple, and when the captain, to whom the girl was the merest diversion, began to make love, Claude Frollo, unable to contain himself, rushed in unobserved and stabbed him.

Captain Phoebus was taken up for dead, and the priest vanished as silently as he had come.  The soldiers of the watch found Esmeralda, and said, “This is the sorceress who has stabbed our captain.”  So Esmeralda was brought to trial on the charge of witchcraft, and every day the priest from Notre Dame came into court.

It was a tedious process, for not only was the girl on trial, but the goat also, in accordance with the custom of the times, was under arrest.