The guards roughly take off the girl's right shoe and sock. They place an ugly-looking tool on her pretty foot and begin to turn it.
"Oh, my Phoebus!" cries Esmeralda in a quiet, weak voice.
She sees Monsieur Torterue coming near the table with another tool, this time hot from the fire. Fear makes her strong, and she shouts, "Stop! Please, stop!"
Monsieur Charmolue holds his hand up and asks his question again. "Did you kill Phoebus de Chiteaupers?"
"I did not, good sir."
"Continue the torture!"
The guards turn the tool on her foot again.The pain is very bad. Her foot is ready to break.
"Wait!" screams Esmeralda.
"Are you the murderer?" asks Charmolue again.
"Yes," cries the poor child. She cannot be brave. The torture is too terrible.
"Then you must die."
"Yes, I want death." Esmeralda falls back on to the table.
Jacques Charmolue turns to the lawyers and says, "Write it down. We now have the gypsy girl's true story. She's a murderer and a witch. She's in the service of the devil. This is true, isn't it?" he asks Esmeralda.
"Yes," she answers weakly. She has stopped fighting.
"Take her back to the judge," orders Charmolue.
In the crowded courtroom,Judge d'Estouteville hears Monsieur Charmolues report. Then the judge says, "Gypsy girl, we find that you're a murderer and a witch. In two weeks' time you'll go to the Cathedral of Notre-Dame and prepare yourself for death. Then at noon on that day, we will hang you and your goat in the Place de Grěve for your crimes."
Esmeralda is thrown into a wet, dark prison. She is completely alone. The only sound is cold water dropping into a dirty pool at her feet.
The pain is very bad.
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