“No, monseigneur, I do not understand. Hanged in one case, beaten in the other; where does my advantage come in?”

“And what about becoming a rogue?” rejoined Clopin. “Is that nothing? It’s in your own interest that we beat you, so that you may be hardened against stripes.”

“I am greatly obliged to you,” replied the poet.

“Come, make haste!” said the King with a resounding kick against his barrel. “Pick the manikin’s pocket and be done with it. I warn you for the last time that if I hear the faintest tinkle you shall take the manikin’s place.”

The whole crew of Argotiers applauded Clopin’s words, and ranged themselves in a circle round the gallows with such pitiless laughter, that Gringoire saw plainly that he was affording them too much amusement not to have cause to fear the worst. He had therefore no hope left, save perhaps in the faint chance of succeeding in the desperate task imposed upon him. He resolved to risk it, but he first addressed a fervent prayer to the man of straw whom he was preparing to rob, and whose heart he was more likely to soften than those of the rogues. These myriad bells with their little brazen tongues seemed to him like so many asps with mouths open ready to hiss and bite.

“Oh,” he breathed, “can it be that my life depends on the faintest vibration of the smallest of these bells? Oh,” he added, clasping his hands, “oh, clashing, jingling, tinkling bells, be silent, I implore!”

He made one more attempt with Trouillefou.

“And if there should come a puff of wind?”

“You will be hanged,” replied the other without hesitation.

Realizing that there was no respite, no delay or subterfuge possible, he bravely set about his task. He twisted his right foot round his left ankle, rose on his left foot, and stretched out his hand; but as he touched the manikin, his body, being now supported but on one foot, swayed on the stool which had but three; he clutched mechanically at the figure, lost his balance, and fell heavily to the ground, deafened by the fatal clashing of the manikin’s thousand bells, while the figure, yielding to the thrust of his hand, first revolved on its own axis, and then swung majestically between the two posts.

“Malediction!” exclaimed the poet as he fell, and he lay face downward on the earth as if dead.

Nevertheless, he heard the terrible carillon going on above his head, and the diabolical laughter of the thieves, and the voice of Trouillefou saying: “Lift the fellow up and hang him double-quick!”

Gringoire rose to his feet. They had already unhooked the manikin to make room for him.

The Argotiers forced him to mount the stool. Clopin then came up, passed the rope round his neck, and clapping him on the shoulders, “Adieu, l’ami,” he said. “You don’t escape this time, not even if you were as cunning as the Pope himself.”

The word “mercy” died on Gringoire’s lips. He looked around him—not a sign of hope—all were laughing.

“Bellevigne de l’ètoile,” said the King of Tunis to a gigantic rogue, who at once stood forth from the rest, “climb up on to the top beam.”

Bellevigne de l’ètoile clambered nimbly up, and the next instant Gringoire, on raising his eyes, saw with terror that he was astride the cross-beam above his head.