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"Now," went on the King of Thunes, "twist your right foot round your left leg, and rise on the tip of your left foot." "Monseigneur," said Gringoire, "so you absolutely insist on my breaking some one of my limbs?" Clopin tossed his head. "Hark ye, my friend, you talk too much.
Clopin was sitting by the window chattering to his birds when Cleek entered, and a glance at him was sufficient to decide two points: first, he was not disguised, nor was his partial blindness in any way a sham, for an idiot could have seen that the droop of the left eyelid over the staring, palpably artificial eye which glazed over the empty socket beneath was due to perfectly natural causes; and, second, that the man was indeed what the Count had said he resembled, namely, a gutter-bred outcast.
"Captain Clopin," said Andry the Red, "he slipped away before we reached the Pont-aux-Changeurs." Clopin stamped his foot. "Gueule-Dieu! 'twas he who pushed us on hither, and he has deserted us in the very middle of the job! Cowardly chatterer, with a slipper for a helmet!" "Captain Clopin," said Andry the Red, who was gazing down Rue du Parvis, "yonder is the little scholar."
"He is a nervous fellow, this poor Clopin; I wish him to be able to ring for help if you and your men go too far."
The thieves made him mount the stool, Clopin came to him, passed the rope about his neck, and, tapping him on the shoulder, "Adieu, my friend. You can't escape now, even if you digested with the pope's guts." The word "Mercy!" died away upon Gringoire's lips. He cast his eyes about him; but there was no hope: all were laughing.
The eleven steps before the portal were covered with them. But the door stood firm. "The devil! 'tis hard and obstinate!" said one. "It is old, and its gristles have become bony," said another. "Courage, comrades!" resumed Clopin. "I wager my head against a dipper that you will have opened the door, rescued the girl, and despoiled the chief altar before a single beadle is awake. Stay!
She seldom saw a newspaper, since she could not afford one for her own perusal, and those supplied to the Pension Clopin were usually in the hands of its more privileged lodgers till long after the hour when she set out on her morning round. "No; I didn't see it," she stammered. Deering was silent.
Her swift glance flashed to the fireplace, then to the corner where Clopin still sat with his jabbering parakeets, then flashed back to Cleek, and she laughed in his face. "I think not, monsieur," she said, with a swaggering air. "Truly, I think not, my excellent friend." "What a pity you only think so, madame! As for me Ah, welcome, count, welcome a thousand times.
To the sack, then! to the sack!" "To the sack!" repeated the rabble, with a furious hurrah. A discharge of crossbows and hackbuts against the front of the church followed. At this detonation, the peaceable inhabitants of the surrounding houses woke up; many windows were seen to open, and nightcaps and hands holding candles appeared at the casements. "Fire at the windows," shouted Clopin.
It was a dead body which remained hanging there, bent double, its loins broken, its skull empty. A cry of horror rose among the vagabonds. "Vengeance!" shouted Clopin. "To the sack!" replied the multitude. "Assault! assault!" There came a tremendous howl, in which were mingled all tongues, all dialects, all accents. The death of the poor scholar imparted a furious ardor to that crowd.
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