Gringoire’s first care, on entering the boat, was to take the goat upon his knees. He settled himself in the stern, and the girl, whom the unknown man inspired with indefinable uneasiness, seated herself as close as possible to the poet.

As soon as our philosopher felt the boat in motion, he clapped his hands and kissed Djali between her horns.

“Oh!”he cried, “now we are safe, all four of us!”and added with the air of a profound thinker: “We are indebted sometimes to fortune, sometimes to strategy, for the happy issue of a great undertaking.”

The boat was making its way slowly across to the right bank. The gipsy girl regarded their unknown companion with secret terror. He had carefully shut off the light of his dark-lantern, and was now only dimly perceptible in the bow of the boat, like a shadowy phantom. His hood, which was still pulled down, formed a kind of mask to his face, and each time that in rowing he opened his arms, his long hanging black sleeves gave them the appearance of enormous bat’s wings. As yet he had breathed not a word. There was no sound in the boat but the regular splash of the oars and the rippling of the water against the sides of the skiff.

“Upon my soul!”suddenly exclaimed Gringoire, “we are as lively as a company of horned-owls! We observe a silence of Pythagoreans or of fishes! Pasque-Dieu! my friends, I wish that some one would converse with me. The human voice is music in the human ear. That is not my own saying, but of Didymus of Alexandria, and an illustrious saying it is! Certes, Didymus of Alexandria was no mediocre philosopher. One word, my pretty one—only one word, I entreat you. By the way, you used to make a droll little grimace, peculiar to yourself; do you make it still? You must know, my dear, that the Parliament has full jurisdiction over all places of sanctuary, and that you were in great peril in that little cell of yours in Notre-Dame? The little trochilus builds its nest in the crocodile’s jaws. Master, here’s the moon appearing again. If they only do not catch sight of us! We are performing a laudable act in saving mademoiselle, and yet they would string us up in the King’s name if they were to catch us. Alas, that every human action should have two handles! They blame in me what they crown in thee. One man admires Cæsar, and abuses Catiline. Is that not so, master? What say you to this philosophy? I possess the philosophy of instinct, of nature, ut apes geometriam. What, no answer from anybody? You are both, it seems, in a very churlish mood!

“You oblige me to do the talking alone. That is what we call in tragedy a monologue. Pasque-Dieu!—I would have you know that I am just come from King Louis XI, and that I have caught that oath from him—Pasque-Dieu! they are keeping up a glorious howling in the city! ’Tis a bad, wicked old king. He is all wrapped in furs. He still owes me the money for my epithalamium, and he all but hanged me to- night, which would have greatly hindered my career. He is niggardly towards men of merit. He would do well to read the four books of Salvian of Cologne—Adversus Avaritiam. In good sooth, he is a king very narrow in his dealings with men of letters, and who commits most barbarous cruelties—a sponge laid upon the people, and sucking up their money. His thrift is as the spleen that grows big upon the wasting of the other members. And so the complaints against the hardness of the times turn to murmurs against the prince. Under this mild and pious lord of ours the gibbets are weighed down with corpses, the blocks rot with gore, the prisons burst like overfilled sacks. This king robs with one hand, and hangs with the other. He is the purveyor for Mme. Gabelle¹

The man in black let the garrulous poet babble on. He was still struggling against the strong full current that separates the prow of the city from the poop of the île Notre-Dame, now called the île Saint Louis.

“By-the-bye, master,”Gringoire began again suddenly; “just as we reached the Parvis through the raging crowd of truands, did your reverence remark the poor little devil whose brains that deaf ringer of yours