Page:Victor Hugo - Notre-Dame de Paris (tr. Hapgood, 1888).djvu/451

Rh hands and burst into a frantic laugh,—"Approach," she said to the priest.

She held the blade high. The priest remained undecided. She would certainly have struck him.

Then she added with a pitiless expression, well aware that she was about to pierce the priest's heart with thousands of red-hot irons,—

"Ah! I know that Phœbus is not dead!

The priest overturned Quasimodo on the floor with a kick, and, quivering with rage, darted back under the vault of the staircase.

When he was gone, Quasimodo picked up the whistle which had just saved the gypsy.

"It was getting rusty," he said, as he handed it back to her; then he left her alone.

The young girl, deeply agitated by this violent scene, fell back exhausted on her bed, and began to sob and weep. Her horizon was becoming gloomy once more.

The priest had groped his way back to his cell.

It was settled. Dom Claude was jealous of Quasimodo!

He repeated with a thoughtful air his fatal words: "No one shall have her."