who were still trotting on before him, - two slender, delicate, and charming creatures, whose small feet, pretty figures, and graceful motions he gazed at with admiration, almost confounding them together in his contemplation; their common intelligence and mutual affection seeming those of two young girls ; while for their light, quick, graceful step, they might have been both young hinds.

Meanwhile, the streets were every moment becoming darker and more solitary. The curfew had long ceased to ring, and now it was only at long intervals that a person passed you on the pavement, or a light was to be seen at a window. Gringoire, in following the gypsy, had involved himself in that inextricable labyrinth of alleys, courts, and crossings, which surrounds the ancient sepulchre of the Holy Innocents, anu may be compared to a skein of thread ravelled by the playing of a kitten. "Very illogical streets, in truth!" muttered Gringoire, quite lost in the thousand windings which seemed to be everlastingly turning back upon themselves, but through which the girl followed a track that seemed to be well known to her, and with a pace of increasing rapidity. For his own part, he would have been perfectly ignorant as to his "whereabout," had he not observed, at the bend of a street, the octagonal mass of the pillory of the Halles, the perforated top of which traced its dark outline upon a solitary patch of light yet visible in a window of the Rue Verdelet.

A few minutes before, his step had attracted the girl's attention; she had several times turned her head towards him, as if with uneasiness: once, too, she had stopped short, had availed herself of a ray of light that escaped from a half-open bakehouse, to survey him steadily from head to foot; then, when she had taken that glance, Gringoire had observed her make that little mow which he had already remarked, and she had gone on without more ado.

This same little mow furnished Gringoire with a subject of reflection. There certainly was disdain and mockery in that pretty little grimace: so that he was beginning to hang down his head, to count the paving-stones, and to follow the girl at a rather greater distance, when, just after she had made a turn into a street which took her for a moment out of his sight, he heard her utter a piercing shriek.

He quickened his pace. The street was quite dark. However, a twist of tow steeped in oil, which was burning in a sort of iron cage at the foot of a statue of the Virgin at the corner of the street, enabled Gringoire to discern the gypsy struggling in the arms of two men, who were endeavoring to stifle her cries, while the poor little goat, all wild with affright, hung down its head, bleating.

"Hither! hither! gentlemen of the watch!" cried Gringoire; and he advanced bravely. One of the men who had laid hold of the girl turned towards him. It was the formidable visage of Quasimodo. Gringoire did not fly, but he did not advance another step.

Quasimodo came up to him, threw him four paces off upon the pavement with a back stroke of his hand, and plunged rapidly into the darkness, bearing off the girl, her figure drooping over his arm almost as flexibly as a silken scarf. His companion followed him, and the poor goat ran behind, with its plaintive bleat.

"Murder! murder!" cried the unfortunate gypsy. "Stand, there, you scoundrels! and let that wench go!" was all at once heard in a voice of thunder, from a horseman who suddenly made his appearance from the neighboring crossway.

It was a captain of that description of household troops which were still called archers (from the crossbows which they carried before the invention of firearms), armed cap-à-pie, with his espadon, or great two-edged sword, in his hand. He snatched the gypsy from the grasp of the amazed Quasimodo, laid her across his saddle, and, at the moment when the redoubtable hunchback, having recovered from his surprise, was rushing upon him to seize his prey a second time, fifteen or sixteen archers who followed close upon their captain made their appearance, each brandishing his broadsword. They were a detachment going the counter-watch, by order of Messire Robert d'Estouteville, keeper of the provostry of Paris.

Quasimodo was surrounded, seized, and bound. He roared, he foamed, he bit; and had it been daylight, no doubt his visage alone, rendered yet more hideous by rage, would have put the whole detachment to flight. But, being in the dark, he was disarmed of his most formidable weapon, his ugliness. His companion had disappeared during the struggle.

The gypsy girl gracefully gained her seat upon the officer's saddle, leaned both her hands upon the young man's shoulders, and looked fixedly at him for

a few seconds, as if delighted with his fine countenance and the effectual succor he had rendered her. Then, speaking first, and making her sweet voice still sweeter, she said to him, "Monsieur le gendarme, what is your name?"

"Captain Phœbus de Chateaupers, at your service, my fair one," said the officer, drawing himself up. "Thank you," said she.

And while Captain Phœbus was curling his moustache à la Bourguignonne, she glided down from the horse like an arrow falling to the ground, and fled with the speed of lightning.

"Nombril du Pape!" exclaimed the captain, while he made them tighten the bands upon the limbs of Quasimodo, "I'd rather have kept the wench.”

"Why, captain," said one of the gendarmes, "what would you have? The linnet is flown; we've made sure of the bat."

CHAPTER

SEQUEL OF THE DANGERS.

GRINGOIRE, quite stunned with his fall, had remained stretched upon the pavement before the good Virgin of the corner of the street. By degrees, however, he recovered his senses. At first, he was for some minutes in a sort of half-somnolent reverie, which was not altogether disagreeable, and in which the airy figures of the gypsy and the goat were confounded in his imagination with the weight of Quasimodo's fist. This state of his feelings, however, was of short duration. A very lively impression of cold upon that part of his body which was in contact with the ground, suddenly awoke him, and brought back his mind to the surface. "Whence is this coolness that I feel?" said he hastily to himself. He then perceived that he lay somewhere about the middle of the gutter.

"The devil take the humpbacked Cyclop!" grumbled he; and he strove to get up. But he was too much stunned, and too much bruised; so that he was forced to remain where he was. Having, however, the free use of his hand, he stopped his nose, and resigned himself to his situation.