"Well, yes, an assassin!" he said, "and I will have you. You will not have me for your slave, you shall have me for your master. I will have you! I have a den, whither I will drag you. You will follow me, you will be obliged to follow me, or I will deliver you up! You must die, my beauty, or be mine! belong to the priest! belong to the apostate! belong to the assassin! this very night, do you hear? Come! joy; kiss me, mad girl! The tomb or my bed!"
His eyes sparkled with impurity and rage. His lewd lips reddened the young girl's neck. She struggled in his arms. He covered her with furious kisses.
"Do not bite me, monster!" she cried. "Oh! the foul, odious monk! leave me! I will tear out thy ugly gray hair and fling it in thy face by the handful!"
He reddened, turned pale, then released her and gazed at her with a gloomy air. She thought herself victorious, and continued,-"I tell you that I belong to my Phoebus, that 'tis Phoebus whom I love, that 'tis Phoebus who is handsome! you are old, priest! you are ugly! Begone!"
He gave vent to a horrible cry, like the wretch to whom a hot iron is applied. "Die, then!" he said, gnashing his teeth. She saw his terrible look and tried to fly. He caught her once more, he shook her, he flung her on the ground, and walked with rapid strides towards the corner of the Tour- Roland, dragging her after him along the pavement by her beautiful hands.
On arriving there, he turned to her,-"For the last time, will you be mine?"
She replied with emphasis,-"No!"
Then he cried in a loud voice,-"Gudule! Gudule! here is the gypsy! take your vengeance!"
The young girl felt herself seized suddenly by the elbow. She looked. A fleshless arm was stretched from an opening in the wall, and held her like a hand of iron.
"Hold her well," said the priest; "'tis the gypsy escaped. Release her not. I will go in search of the sergeants. You shall see her hanged."
A guttural laugh replied from the interior of the wall to these bloody words--"Hah! hah! hah!"--The gypsy watched the priest retire in the direction of the Pont Notre-Dame. A cavalcade was heard in that direction.
The young girl had recognized the spiteful recluse. Panting with terror, she tried to disengage herself. She writhed, she made many starts of agony and despair, but the other held her with incredible strength. The lean and bony fingers which bruised her, clenched on her flesh and met around it. One would have said that this hand was riveted to her arm. It was more than a chain, more than a fetter, more than a ring of iron, it was a living pair of pincers endowed with intelligence, which emerged from the wall.