n angle of the pillory a black hour-glass,
the upper lobe of which was filled with red sand, which it allowed
to glide into the lower receptacle; then he removed his parti-colored
surtout, and there became visible, suspended from his right hand, a
thin and tapering whip of long, white, shining, knotted, plaited thongs,
armed with metal nails. With his left hand, he negligently folded back
his shirt around his right arm, to the very armpit.

In the meantime, Jehan Frollo, elevating his curly blonde head above
the crowd (he had mounted upon the shoulders of Robin Poussepain for the
purpose), shouted: "Come and look, gentle ladies and men! they are
going to peremptorily flagellate Master Quasimodo, the bellringer of
my brother, monsieur the archdeacon of Josas, a knave of oriental
architecture, who has a back like a dome, and legs like twisted
columns!"

And the crowd burst into a laugh, especially the boys and young girls.

At length the torturer stamped his foot. The wheel began to turn.
Quasimodo wavered beneath his bonds. The amazement which was suddenly
depicted upon his deformed face caused the bursts of laughter to
redouble around him.

All at once, at the moment when the wheel in its revolution presented to
Master Pierrat, the humped back of Quasimodo, Master Pierrat raised his
arm; the fine thongs whistled sharply through the air, like a handful of
adders, and fell with fury upon the wretch's shoulders.

Quasimodo leaped as though awakened with a start. He began to
understand. He writhed in his bonds; a violent contraction of surprise
and pain distorted the muscles of his face, but he uttered not a single
sigh. He merely turned his head backward, to the right, then to the
left, balancing it as a bull does who has been stung in the flanks by a
gadfly.

A second blow followed the first, then a third, and another and another,
and still others. The wheel did not cease to turn, nor the blows to rain
down.

Soon the blood burst forth, and could be seen trickling in a thousand
threads down the hunchback's black shoulders; and the slender thongs, in
their rotatory motion which rent the air, sprinkled drops of it upon the
crowd.

Quasimodo had resumed, to all appearance, his first imperturbability. He
had at first tried, in a quiet way and without much outward movement,
to break his bonds. His eye had been seen to light up, his muscles
to stiffen, his members to concentrate their force, and the straps
to stretch