Notre Dame de Paris - Bartleby.com

ladder after him and shouting, “Follow, boys!”
In an instant the ladder was set up and placed against the balustrade of the lower gallery over one of
the side doors. The crowd of beggars, shouting and hustling, pressed round the foot of it wanting to
ascend; but Jehan maintained his right, and was the first to set foot on the steps of the ladder. The ascent
was pretty long. The gallery of the kings is, at this day, about sixty feet from the ground; but at that
period it was raised still higher by the eleven steps of the entrance. Jehan ascended slowly, much
encumbered by his heavy armour, one hand on the ladder, the other grasping his crossbow. When he was
half-way up he cast a mournful glance over the poor dead Argotiers heaped on the steps. “Alas!” said
he, “here are corpses enough for the fifth canto of the Iliad!” He continued his ascent, the Vagabonds
following him, one on every step of the ladder. To see that line of mailed backs rising and undulating in
the dark, one might have taken it for a serpent with steely scales rearing itself on end to attack the
church, and the whistling of Jehan, who represented its head, completed the illusion.
The scholar at last reached the parapet of the gallery, and strode lightly over it amid the applause of
the whole truandry. Finding himself thus master of the citadel, he uttered a joyful shout—and then
stopped short, petrified. He had just caught sight, behind one of the royal statues, of Quasimodo
crouching in the gloom, his eye glittering ominously.
Before another of the besiegers had time to gain a footing on the gallery, the redoubtable hunchback
sprang to the head of the ladder, seized without a word the ends of the two uprights in his powerful
hands, heaved them away from the wall, let the long and pliant ladder, packed with truands from top to
bottom, sway for a moment amid a sudden outcry of fear, then suddenly, with superhuman force, flung
back this living cluster into the Place. For an instant the stoutest heart quailed. The ladder thrust
backward stood upright for a moment, swayed, then suddenly, describing a frightful arc of eighty feet in
radius, crashed down upon the pavement with its living load more rapidly than a drawbridge when its
chain gives way. There was one universal imprecation, then silence, and a few mutilated wretches were
seen crawling out from among the heap of dead.
A murmur of mingled agony and resentment succeeded the besiegers’ first shouts of triumph.
Quasimodo, leaning on his elbows on the balustrade, regarded them impassively. He might have been
one of the old long-haired kings at his window.
Jehan Frollo found himself in a critical position. He was alone on the gallery with the redoubtable
bell-ringer, separated from his companions by eighty feet of sheer wall. While Quasimodo was engaged
with the ladder, the scholar had run to the postern which he expected to find on the latch. Foiled! The
bell-ringer, as he entered the gallery, had locked it behind him. Thereupon Jehan had hidden himself
behind one of the stone kings, not daring to breathe, but fixing upon the terrible hunchback a wide-eyed
and bewildered gaze, like the man who courted the wife of a menagerie keeper, and going one evening to
a rendezvous, scaled the wrong wall and found himself suddenly face to face with the polar bear.
For the first few moments the hunchback did not notice him; but presently he turned his head and
straightened himself with a jerk—he had caught sight of the scholar.
Jehan prepared himself for a savage encounter, but his deaf antagonist did not move; only he kept his
face turned towards him and regarded him steadily.
“Ho! ho!” said Jehan, “why dost thou glare at me so with that single surly eye?” And so saying, the
young scamp began stealthily raising his cross-bow. “Quasimodo!” he cried, “I’m going to change thy