re faces, leather aprons,
and linen breeches, were moving the iron instruments on the coals.

In vain did the poor girl summon up her courage; on entering this
chamber she was stricken with horror.

The sergeants of the bailiff of the courts drew up in line on one side,
the priests of the officiality on the other. A clerk, inkhorn, and a
table were in one corner.

Master Jacques Charmolue approached the gypsy with a very sweet smile.

"My dear child," said he, "do you still persist in your denial?"

"Yes," she replied, in a dying voice.

"In that case," replied Charmolue, "it will be very painful for us to
have to question you more urgently than we should like. Pray take the
trouble to seat yourself on this bed. Master Pierrat, make room for
mademoiselle, and close the door."

Pierrat rose with a growl.

"If I shut the door," he muttered, "my fire will go out."

"Well, my dear fellow," replied Charmolue, "leave it open then."

Meanwhile, la Esmeralda had remained standing. That leather bed on which
so many unhappy wretches had writhed, frightened her. Terror chilled the
very marrow of her bones; she stood there bewildered and stupefied. At
a sign from Charmolue, the two assistants took her and placed her in
a sitting posture on the bed. They did her no harm; but when these
men touched her, when that leather touched her, she felt all her blood
retreat to her heart. She cast a frightened look around the chamber. It
seemed to her as though she beheld advancing from all quarters towards
her, with the intention of crawling up her body and biting and pinching
her, all those hideous implements of torture, which as compared to the
instruments of all sorts she had hitherto seen, were like what bats,
centipedes, and spiders are among insects and birds.

"Where is the physician?" asked Charmolue.

"Here," replied a black gown whom she had not before noticed.

She shuddered.

"Mademoiselle," resumed the caressing voice of the procucrator of the
Ecclesiastical court, "for the third time, do you persist in denying the
deeds of which you are accused?"

This time she could only make a sign with her head.

"You persist?" said Jacques Charmolue. "Then it grieves me deeply, but I
must fulfil my office."

"Monsieur le Procureur du Roi," said Pierrat abruptly, "How shall we
begin?"

Charmolue hesitated for a moment with the ambiguous grimace of a poet in
search of a rhyme.

"With the boot," he said at last.

The un