she thought that she felt a touch of fire imprinted upon her lips, a
kiss more burning than the red-hot iron of the executioner.

When she recovered her senses, she was surrounded by soldiers of the
watch they were carrying away the captain, bathed in his blood the
priest had disappeared; the window at the back of the room which opened
on the river was wide open; they picked up a cloak which they supposed
to belong to the officer and she heard them saying around her,

"'Tis a sorceress who has stabbed a captain."

BOOK EIGHTH.

CHAPTER I. THE CROWN CHANGED INTO A DRY LEAF.

Gringoire and the entire Court of Miracles were suffering mortal
anxiety. For a whole month they had not known what had become of la
Esmeralda, which greatly pained the Duke of Egypt and his friends the
vagabonds, nor what had become of the goat, which redoubled Gringoire's
grief. One evening the gypsy had disappeared, and since that time had
given no signs of life. All search had proved fruitless. Some tormenting
bootblacks had told Gringoire about meeting her that same evening near
the Pont Saint-Michel, going off with an officer; but this husband,
after the fashion of Bohemia, was an incredulous philosopher, and
besides, he, better than any one else, knew to what a point his wife was
virginal. He had been able to form a judgment as to the unconquerable
modesty resulting from the combined virtues of the amulet and the gypsy,
and he had mathematically calculated the resistance of that chastity to
the second power. Accordingly, he was at ease on that score.

Still he could not understand this disappearance. It was a profound
sorrow. He would have grown thin over it, had that been possible. He had
forgotten everything, even his literary tastes, even his great work,
_De figuris regularibus et irregularibus_, which it was his intention
to have printed with the first money which he should procure (for he had
raved over printing, ever since he had seen the "Didascalon" of Hugues
de Saint Victor, printed with the celebrated characters of Vindelin de
Spire).

One day, as he was passing sadly before the criminal Tournelle, he
perceived a considerable crowd at one of the gates of the Palais de
Justice.

"What is this?" he inquired of a young man who was coming out.

"I know not, sir," replied the young man. "'Tis said that they are
trying a woman who hath assassinated a gendarme. It appears that there
is sorcery at the bottom