Chapter IV

An Awkward Friend

That night, Quasimodo did not sleep. Since the nocturnal adventure in the cell, Dom Clause constantly abused Quasimodo. He endured everything on the part of the archdeacon, insults, threats, blows, without murmuring a complaint. The archdeacon had abstained from presenting himself again before the gypsy’s eyes.

On that night, accordingly, Quasimodo, went to the summit of the Northern tower, and began to gaze at Paris. The night was very dark. He noticed that there was something strange about the Quay de la Vieille-Pelleterie, that there was a movement at that point. It looked like the heads of a crowd in motion.

This struck him as strange. He redoubled his attention. The movement seemed to be advancing towards the City. There was no light.

Then, he saw the head of a column debouch from that street, and in an instant a crowd—of which nothing could be distinguished in the gloom except that it was a crowd—spread over the Place.

This spectacle had a terror of its own. It seemed to him, that he beheld advancing towards him a fog of men, and that he saw shadows moving in the shadow.

Then his fears returned to him, the idea of an attempt against the gypsy presented itself once more to his mind. He was conscious, in a confused way, that a violent crisis was approaching. Awaken the gypsy? Make her escape? Where? The streets were invested, the church backed on the river. No boat, no issue!—There was but one thing to be done; to allow himself to be killed on the threshold of Notre-Dame, to resist at least for a while, and not to trouble la Esmeralda’s sleep. Once the decision was made, he set to examining the enemy with more tranquillity. He his lantern and descended to the platform between the towers, in order to get a nearer view, and to spy out a means of defence.

Clopin Trouillefou, on arriving in front of the Notre-Dame had, in fact, ranged his troops in order of battle. Although he expected no resistance, he wished, like a prudent general, to preserve an order which would permit him to face, at need, a sudden attack of the watch or the police.

When the first arrangements were completed, and Clopin’s orders were executed in silence, he mounted on the parapet of the church square, and raised his hoarse voice.

“To you, Louis de Beaumont, bishop of Paris, counsellor in the Court of Parliament, I, Clopin Trouillefou, king of Thunes, grand Coësre, prince of Argot, bishop of fools, I say: Our sister, falsely condemned for magic, hath taken refuge in your church, you owe her asylum and safety. Now the Court of Parliament wishes to seize her once more, and you consent to it. That is why we call upon you to return the girl if you wish to save your church.”

Quasimodo could not, unfortunately, hear these words.

The King of Thunes turned round and cast his eyes over his army. After a momentary pause,—“Forward, my Sons!” he cried; “to work, locksmiths!”

Thirty bold men, square shouldered, and with pick-lock faces, stepped from the ranks, with hammers, pincers, and bars of iron on their shoulders. They went to the main door of the church, ascended the steps, and were soon to be seen squatting under the arch, working at the door.

Work was interrupted by a frightful uproar. An enormous beam had just fallen from above; it had crushed a dozen vagabonds on the pavement with the sound of a cannon.. The locksmiths, although protected by the deep vaults of the portal, abandoned the door.

“A thousand popes!” exclaimed Clopin, “To work, locksmiths! Let the door be forced!”

No one took a step.

An old locksmith addressed him—

“Captain, ’tis not the beam which bothers us, ’tis the door, which is all covered with iron bars. Our pincers are powerless against it.”

“What more do you want to break it in?” demanded Clopin.

“Ah! We ought to have a battering ram.”

The King of Thunes ran boldly to the formidable beam, and placed his foot upon it: “Here is one!” he exclaimed.

This piece of bravado produced its effects. The vagabonds recovered their courage.

At the shock of the beam, the half metallic door sounded like an immense drum; it was not burst in, but the whole cathedral trembled.

At the same moment, a shower of large stones began to fall from the top of the façade on the assailants.

The reader has no doubt divined that this unexpected resistance came from Quasimodo.

Chance had, unfortunately, favored the brave deaf man.

The materials he was throwing upon the heads of vagrants came from the masons that had been at work all day repairing the wall, the timber-work, and the roof of the south tower.

“Impossible to get in!” Clopin muttered between his teeth.

“An old, enchanted church!” grumbled the aged Bohemian, Mathias Hungadi Spicali.

“Pardieu, ’tis that damned bellringer, ’tis Quasimodo,” said Clopin.

“Is there, then, no way of forcing this door,” exclaimed the King of Thunes, stamping his foot.

“We shall never get in by the door. We must find the defect in the armor of the old fairy; a hole, a false postern, some joint or other.”

“Who will go with me?” said Clopin. “I shall go at it again. By the way, where is the little scholar, who is so encased in iron?”

“He’s there.”

“Praised be Pluto!” said Clopin. “But what the devil is he dragging after him?”

It was, in fact, Jehan, who joined the vagabonds in their march upon the cathedral. He was running as fast as his heavy outfit allowed, and carried a long ladder which trailed on the pavement.

Clopin approached him.

“Child, what do you mean to do with this ladder?”

Jehan gazed at him with a malicious, knowing look, and cracked his fingers like castanets. “Do you see that row of statues above the three portals?”

“Yes. Well?”

“’Tis the gallery of the kings of France.”

“What is that to me?” said Clopin.

“Wait! At the end of that gallery there is a door which is never fastened otherwise than with a latch, and with this ladder I ascend, and I am in the church.”

“Child let me be the first to ascend.”

“No, comrade, the ladder is mine. Come, you shall be the second.”

“May Beelzebub strangle you!” said surly Clopin, “I won’t be second to anybody.”

“Then find a ladder, Clopin!”

Jehan set out on a run across the Place, dragging his ladder and shouting: “Follow me, lads!”

In an instant the ladder was raised, and propped against the balustrade of the lower gallery. Jehan was the first to ascend. The vagabonds followed.

When he finally reached the top, Jehan uttered a shout of joy, and suddenly halted, petrified. He had just caught sight of Quasimodo, behind one of the statues of the kings.

Before a second assailant could gain a foothold on the gallery, the formidable hunchback leaped to the head of the ladder, and pushed it from the wall. The ladder fell, and the people with it. A few mutilated wretches were seen, crawling over the heap of dead.

As for Jehan Frollo, he was in a critical position. He found himself in the gallery with the formidable bellringer, alone. He concealed himself behind a stone king, not daring to breathe, and fixing upon the monstrous hunchback a frightened gaze.

For the first few moments, the deaf man paid no heed to him; but at last he turned his head, and suddenly straightened up. He had just caught sight of the scholar.

Jehan prepared himself for a rough shock, but the deaf man only turned towards the scholar and was looking at him.

“Ho ho!” said Jehan, “what do you mean by staring at me with that solitary and melancholy eye?”

As he spoke thus, the young scamp stealthily adjusted his crossbow.

“Quasimodo!” he cried, “I am going to change your surname: you shall be called the blind man.”

The shot sped. The feathered bolt whizzed and entered the hunchback’s left arm. Quasimodo appeared no more moved by it than by a scratch. He laid his hand on the arrow, tore it from his arm, and tranquilly broke it across his big knee. But Jehan had no opportunity to fire a second time. The arrow broken, Quasimodo breathing heavily, bounded like a grasshopper, and he fell upon the scholar, whose armor was flattened against the wall by the blow.

Then in that gloom, a terrible thing was seen.

Quasimodo had grasped with his left hand the two arms of Jehan, who did not offer any resistance. With his right hand, the deaf man detached one by one, in silence, all the pieces of his armor, the sword, the daggers, the helmet, the cuirass, the leg pieces. When the scholar was disarmed, stripped, weak, and naked in those terrible hands, he made no attempt to speak to the deaf man, but began to laugh audaciously in his face.

Quasimodo was seen on the parapet of the gallery, holding the scholar by the feet with one hand and whirling him over the abyss like a sling; then a sound like that of a bony structure in contact with a wall was heard, and something was seen to fall. It stopped a third of the way down in its fall, caught on the architecture. It was a dead body which remained hanging there, bent double, its loins broken, its skull empty.

A cry of horror rose among the vagabonds.

“Vengeance!” shouted Clopin. “To the sack!” replied the multitude. “Assault! Assault!”

There came a tremendous howl, in which were mingled all tongues, all dialects, all accents. The death of the poor scholar made the crowd furious. Rage found ladders, multiplied the torches, and, at the expiration of a few minutes, Quasimodo, in despair, saw that terrible ant heap mount on all sides to the assault of Notre-Dame. It was like a layer of living monsters on the stone monsters of the façade.

Meanwhile, the Place was studded with a thousand torches. The city seemed to be aroused. Alarm bells wailed in the distance. The vagabonds howled, panted, swore, climbed; and Quasimodo, powerless against so many enemies, shuddering for the gypsy, beholding the furious faces approaching ever nearer and nearer to his gallery, wrung his arms in despair.