And if there should come a puff of wind?

“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.
“Now,” resumed Clopin Trouillefou, “when I clap my hands, do you, Andry le Rouge, knock over the stool with your knee; Fran?ois Chante-Prune will hang on to the rascal’s legs, and you, Bellevigne, jump on to his shoulders—but all three at the same time, do you hear?”
Gringoire shuddered.
“Ready?” cried Clopin Trouillefou to the three Argotiers waiting to fall on Gringoire like spiders on a fly. The poor victim had a moment of horrible suspense, during which Clopin calmly pushed into the fire with the point of his shoe some twigs of vine which the flame had not yet reached.
“Ready?” he repeated, and raised his hands to clap. A second more and it would have been all over.
But he stopped short, struck by a sudden idea. “One moment,” he said; “I had forgotten. It is the custom with us not to hang a man without first asking if there’s any woman who will have him. Comrade, that’s your last chance. You must marry either an Argotiére or the rope.”
Absurd as this gipsy law may appear to the reader, he will find it set forth at full length in old English law. (See Burington’s Observations.)
Gringoire breathed again. It was the second reprieve he had had within the last half hour. Yet he could not place much confidence in it.