"Here's a cup to drink out of!" said a man, throwing a broken jug at his breast.
"Water!" repeated Quasimodo for the third time.
At this moment he saw the gypsy girl and her goat come through the crowd. His eye gleamed. He did not doubt that she, too, came to be avenged, and to take her turn at him with the rest. He watched her nimbly climb the ladder. Rage and spite choked him. He longed to destroy the pillory; and had the lightning of his eye had power to blast, the gypsy girl would have been reduced to ashes long before she reached the platform. Without a word she approached the sufferer, loosened a gourd from her girdle, and raised it gently to the parched lips of the miserable man. Then from his eye a great tear trickled, and rolled slowly down the misshapen face, so long convulsed with despair.
The gypsy girl smilingly pressed the neck of the gourd to Quasimodo's jagged mouth.
He drank long draughts; his thirst was feverish. When he had done, the poor wretch put out his black lips to kiss the hand which had helped him. But the girl, remembering the violent attempt of the previous night, and not quite free from distrust, withdrew her hand quickly.
Quasimodo fixed upon her a look of reproach and unspeakable sorrow.
The sight of this beautiful girl succouring a man in the pillory so deformed and wretched seemed sublime, and the people were immediately affected by it. They clapped their hands, and shouted, "Noël! Noël!"
Esmeralda--for that was the name of the gypsy girl--came down from the pillory, and a mad woman called out, "Come down! Come down! You will go up again!"
Presently Quasimodo was released, and the mob thereupon dispersed.