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“ Old woman , ” he said , “ where is the witch whom you were holding ? ” “ She bit me , so I let her go , ” said the mother , “ and she ran that way . ” The soldiers asked her more questions , and she answered them all , and an old sergeant said that this woman had hated gypsies for fifteen years . At last Tristan turned his horse to leave , and the mother began to breathe again . But then Esmeralda heard a voice from the square . “ Sir , it is not the work of a soldier to hang witches , ” it said , “ so I will go back to my men . ” It was the voice of Phoebus , her friend and her protector ! Before her mother could stop her , she jumped to the window . “ Phoebus ! Help me , my Phoebus ! ” But Phoebus had already ridden away round the corner , and he did not hear her . Tristan did . “ Ha ! ” he said , and his teeth showed in a wolfish smile , “ two mice in the trap ! ” The hangman , Henriet Cousin , came with his ladder , and the soldiers broke the wall below the window with their picks . The mother fought like a wild animal to keep her child , and she threw her stone at them . She told them that this was her daughter , and Tristan said that he was sorry , but that it was the king’s order . When they took the girl at last , the mother held her so tightly that the hangman carried them both out together to the foot of the gallows . Then the mother bit his hand , and the soldiers pulled her away and threw her down . Her head struck the stones , and she never moved again . The hangman put the girl over his shoulder , and he began to climb the ladder . XV . The Marriage of Quasimodo Quasimodo had searched the whole cathedral for her . He had looked in every corner , every chapel and every room , and he had climbed every stair to the roofs and the towers , crying her name . But she was nowhere . At last he went up the north tower to the top , where his master the archdeacon was already standing . The priest did not see him . He was leaning over the stone rail and staring at one point in the distance . Quasimodo looked where the priest was looking . Far away across the river , in the Place de Grève , a ladder had been put up beside the gallows , and soldiers stood all around . A man was climbing the ladder with a young girl in white over his shoulder , and there was a rope round her neck . Quasimodo knew her at once . The man reached the top of the ladder and fixed the rope . Then he kicked the ladder away . Quasimodo saw the girl in white hanging at the end of the rope , high above the ground . At that moment the priest laughed . It was a terrible laugh , the laugh of a devil , and Quasimodo did not hear it , but he saw it .
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