Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

She tried to scream but could not.
“Begone, monster! begone, assassin!” she said, in a voice hoarse with passion and dread.
“Have pity! have pity!” murmured the priest, pressing his lips to her shoulder.
She clutched his tonsured head by its scant remaining locks and strove to repel his kisses as if he had
been biting her.
“Have pity!” repeated the unhappy wretch. “Didst thou but know what my love for thee is! ’Tis fire! ’tis
molten lead—a thousand daggers in my heart!”
He held her arm fast with a superhuman grip. “Let me go!” she cried wildly, “or I spit in thy face!”
He released her. “Vilify me—strike me—be angry—do what thou wilt; but in mercy, love me!”
She struck him with the fury of a child. She raised her pretty hands to tear his face. “Away, demon!”
“Love me! love me!” pleaded the unhappy priest, coming close to her again and answering her blows
by caresses.
Suddenly she felt that he was overpowering her. “There must be an end to this,” said he, grinding his
teeth.
She was vanquished, panting, broken, in his arms, at his mercy. She felt a lascivious hand groping over
her, and making one supreme effort she screamed, “Help! help! a vampire! a vampire!”
But no one came. Only Djali was awakened and bleating in terror.
“Keep quiet,” panted the priest. Suddenly in her struggles the gipsy’s hand came against something
cold and metallic. It was Quasimodo’s whistle. She seized it with a spasm of relief, put it to her lips, and
blew with all her remaining strength. The whistle came clear, shrill, piercing.
“What is that?” said the priest. Almost as he spoke he felt himself dragged away by vigorous arms; the
cell was dark, he could not distinguish clearly who it was that held him, but he heard teeth gnashing with
rage, and there was just sufficient light in the gloom to show him the glitter of a great knife-blade just
above his head.
The priest thought he could distinguish the outline of Quasimodo. He supposed it could be no one else.
He recollected having stumbled, in entering, over a bundle lying across the outside of the door. Yet, as
the new-comer uttered no word, he knew not what to think. He seized the arm that held the knife.
“Quasimodo!” he cried, forgetting in this moment of danger that Quasimodo was deaf.
In a trice the priest was thrown upon the floor and felt a knee of iron planted on his chest. By the
pressure of that knee he recognised the hunchback. But what could he do—how make himself known to
the other? Night made the deaf man blind.
He was lost. The girl, pitiless as an enraged tigress, would not interfere to save him. The knife was
nearing his head—it was a critical moment. Suddenly his adversary seemed to hesitate. “No blood near
her!” he said under his breath.
There was no mistaking—it was Quasimodo’s voice.