Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 144 — page 45: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

-— a ae ee but before be. could have made big Mary utter a single calcined and roaring with agony. All around these | of the maids there who thinks me a perfect Cupid. THE HUNCHBAGR Cf NOTRA-DAME, ———$ _— +--+ ———— ———— se 450 —— sound, the church might have been broken open ten | two. principal streams a shower .of this horrible The poor girl came down bhali-naked to let me in—aud times over. It was just at this moment that the @niths were coming upto the door with their tools. What was to be done? All at once he recollected that workmen had been en- gaged the whole day in repairing the wall, timbers, and roof, of the southern tower. To thut tower Quisimodo hastened... The lower rooms were full of materials, There were piles of stones, rolls of lead, bundles of laths, massive beams, and heaps of gravel ; it was, in ort, a completo arsenal. seo oe a no time to be lost. The crow-bars and hammers were at work below. With a strength in- creased tenfold by the sense of danger, he hoisted up the heaviest and longest beam that he could find, shoved it out of a small win low, and over the angle of the balustrade surrounding the platform, and fairly launched it into the abyss. The enormous mass, in this fall of one oan and sixty feet, grazed the wall, breaking the sculptures, and turned over and over sev- eral times in its descent. At length it reached the ground; horrid shrieks sueceeded; and the black beam, rebounding on the pavement, looked like a ser- pent writhing and darting upon its prey. Quasimodo saw the Vagabonds scattered by the fall of the beam, like ashes before the wind. He took ud- vantage of their consternation ; and while they fixed a superstitious stare upon the log fallen as they thought from tie sky, and put out the eyes of the stone saints of the porch by the discharge of their arrows and fire- | arms, Quasimodo fell to work in silence to carry stones, | | rubbish, gravel, and even the bags of tools belonging | to the masons, to the edge of the balustrade over w he had already hoisted the beam. As soon as they commenced battering the door, the shower of stones began to fall,and the Vagabonds imagined that the church was tumbling about theirears, Any one who could have*’seen Quasimodo at that moment would have been seized with dread. Besides the projectiles, which he had piled upon the balustrade, he had carried a heap of stones to the platform itself ; so that.as soon ae the former were exhausted, he might have recourse to the latter. There he was, then, stooping and rising, stooping and rising again, with an activity absolutely inconceivable. His huge head, more like that of a nome than a human being, wasat times bent over the Castnth ; then an enormous stone would fall, then another, and another. From time to time, too, he would follow a thumping stone with his eye; anid whev it did good execution, he would grunt out, “Hun |" The Vagabonds, however, were nothing daunted, More than twenty times the masive door against which their att was directed, had trembled under the weight of the oaken ram, multiplied by the force of a hundred men. The panels were cracked, the carving flew off in shivers, the hinges at every blow sprang up from their pivots, the planks began to start, and the woed was pounded to powder between the braces of jron ; luckily for Quasimodo there was more iron than wood. He was aware, nevertheless, that the door could not hold out long. Though he could not hear it, yet every stroke of the ram reverberated in the caverns, and in the inmost recesses of the church. From his lofty station he saw the assailants, flushed with tri- umph and with rage, shaking their fists at the gloomy faeade, and, for his own sake, as well as for the Egyp- tian's, he coveted the wings of the daws, which flew oft in flocks above his head. Hig ammunition was not effective enough to repel the assailants, Atthis moment of anguish he remarked, a little lower down than the balustrade from which he crushed the men of Slang, two long gutters of stone which dis- orged themselves immediately over the great door. ne inner orifice of these putters opened on the level of the platform. An idea struck him. He ran to his bell-ringer’s lodge for a fagot, placed it over the hole of the two spouts, laid upon it several bundles of laths and rolls of lead, a kind of ammunition to which he had not yet resorted; and, as soon 4s all was arranged, he set fire to the fagot with his lantern. During this interval, as the stones had ceased falling, the Vagabonds no longer lcoked up; and the ruffians, panting like dogs baying the wild boar in his den, crowid- ed tumultuously round the great door, shattered by the battering engine, but stillstanding. They awaited with a thrill of impatience the last grand blow, the blow that was to shiver it to . Each was striving to get nearest to the door, that he might be first to dart into the rich magazine of treasures which had been accumnu- latiny in the cathedral fur threecenturies. They roared with joy as they remindéd one another of all th » beauti- {vl silver crucifixes, the rich copes of brocade, th» nionu- nieyts of silvér gilt the magnificenceofthe ch ir, the Chr stmases 8 ng with torches, the Easters dazzling in th + sun—all those splendid solemnnities when shrines, chundeliers, pyxes, tabernacles, reliquaries, embossed the altars with @ crest of gold and: diamonds, As- suredly at this moment the canters, and whiners, the limpers,and tremblers, and tumblers, thought much less of the rescue of the Egyptian than of the plunder of Notre-Dame. For our own we verily believe that with a great proportion of La eralda was merely a pretext, if, however, robbers need any pretext. All on a sudden, while they were grouping them- selves for a last effort about the engine, each holding his breath and stiffening his muscles to throw all his strength into the decisive blow, a howling, more hid- eous than that which followed the fall of the fatal beam, burst from among them. Those who were nat yelling and yet alive looked round. Two streams cf molten lead were po from the top of the building upon the thickest part of the crowd. This sea of men bad subsided beneath the boiling metal, which had made, at the point where it fell, two black and smoking holes in the rabble, such as hot water would make in ® siuow-drift. Here the dying were writi&ing half ich | rain was scattered over the assailants, and the drops pierced their skulls like gimlets of fire. The clamor was horrible. The Vagabonds, throwing the beam upon the dead and dying, fied, pell-mell, the bold and re timid together, and the Paryis was cleared a secund ime. All eyes were raised to the top of the building. They beheld asight of an extraordinary kind, Jn the | pendages. His was bestudded with ten iron beaks, so uppermost gallery, above the central window, rose a _here is the ladder.” ‘*I see,’ said Clopin; “‘ but what are you going to do } with it?’ ; Jehan eyed him wi;h a look ef spite and importance, and snapped his fingers like castanets. At that mo- ment he was really sublime. His head was cased in one of those surcharged helmets of the fifteenth .cen- tury, which daunted theenemy by their fantastic ap- ascended between the two towers—a fierce and irregu- dechemdolos with Nestor’s Homeric ship. lar flame, patches of which were every now and then carried off by the wind along with the smoke, Below “WhatamI going to do with it, august King of Thunes! Took Do you see that row of statues, which this fire, below the somber balustrade, with its glow- £0 like idiots, there, above the three porches ?”’ ing red open-work orniments, two spouts, in the shape of jaws of monsters, vomited without cessation these silver streams, which stood out distinctly against the cark mass of the lower facade. As they approached the ground, those two streams spread like water poured Iwill mount to it, and then I am in the church.” Above the flames the enormous towers, each showing | two sides deeply contrasted, the one quite black, the | through the holes of the rose of a watering-pot. “Yes, what then ?’’ ‘‘ That is the gallery of the kings of France.” “ And what of that?” said Clcpin. “‘Justlisten. At theend of that gallery there is a door, which is always on the latch. With this laddex, “Let me go up first, boy.” “No, no, comrade, ‘ brought the ladder. Youshak other quite red, appeared still Jarger from the im- | be second, if you will.” mense shadows which they threw toward the sky. Their numberless sculptures of devils and dragons assumed a doleful aspect. The flickering of the flame pre them the appearance of motion. Gorgons seemed to 1 laughing, water-spouts yelping, salamanders puffing fire, and yriffins sneezing in the smoke, And amony the monsters thus wakened from their sleep of stone by the ftlimes and by the din, there was one that moved from p.we to place, and passed from time to time in front of the fire, like a bat before a candle. A silence of terror fell upon the army of the Vaga- bends, during which might be heard the cries of the canons shut up in their cloisters, and more alarmed than horses in a stable that is on fire, together with the sound of windows steulthily opened and more quickly shut, a bustle in the interior of the houses and in the Hotel-Dieu, the wind in the flame, the last rattle of the dying, and the continuous pattering of the leaden rain upon the pavement. Meanwhile, the principal of the Vagabonds had re- tired to the porch of the ondelaurier mansion, an’, / wy the Vagabonds. Hud you seen this Jine ofc “* May Beelzebub sirangle thee |"’ cried Clopin, peey- ishly. “I will not be second to any man,’’ “Then, my dear fellow, seek a ladder for yourseli.’” Jehan started again, dragging his ladder along and. shouting, “This way, my lads f Iu an instaut the ladder was raisedand placed against. the balustrade of ne lower gallery, ve one the m the crowd of side doors, amidst loud acclamations the Vagabonds, who thronged to the foot of it to ascend. Jehan naintaiued his right to go up first. The Ty of the kings of France is at this present time about sixty feet abdve the pavement, The eleven steps. up to the porch increased the height. Jehan mounted slowly, beiug imped: d@ by his heavy armor, laying hold of the ladder with one hand, and Rivne his a t. in the other. When he was about half way up he cast a melancholy look at the dead bodies that covered the st ys andthe pavement. “By my fay,’ Baid ‘ss " e#p OI carcasses that would not disgrace the fifth book of the Iliad,’ He then continued to sscend olowed. were holding consultation. The Duke of Egypt, seat .J) backs undniating .n the dark, yon would have on. & t, contemplated with religious awe the ,e- splendent blaze burning at the height of two hunsred teetin theair. Clopin Trouillefou struck his cl',msy fists toyether with rage. ‘Ilmpossible to brea} in?” muttered he to himself. ‘‘An enchanted ch arch!” grumbled the old Bohemian, Matthia Hunyadj Spicali. “By the pope's whiskers,” exclaimed a yg headed ) auffin who had been a soldier, “ those gut ) ng,dead outand out!’ ‘“ Do you see that demon yassing to and tro, before the fire ?’’ cried the Duke ofEyypt.. “‘Egad.” said Clopin, ‘tis that cursed helene that Quasi- modo.” ‘* And I tell you,” replied the Bohemian, shak- ing his head, “it is the spirit Subnac, the demon of fortification.. He appears in the form of an armed sol- dier with alion’s head, He changes men into stones, and build towers with them. e has the command ot fifty legions, know him’ well—’tis ‘he, sure enough.” * Is there then no way of forcing that infernal door ?” cried the King of Thunes, stumping violently on the pavement. ‘Lie Duke of Egypt poiuted mournfully to the two streams of boiling lead, which still continued to stripe the dark tacade. ‘ Churches have been xnown,’’ observed he, with a sigh, “tu defend them- selves in this manner without the aid of men, It is now about forty years since St. Sophia, at Constanti- nople, threw down three times runniny the crescent of Mohammed by shaking her domes, which are her heads. William of Paris, who built this was a magi- cian.” vs : “Shall we then give it up fora had job, like ascurvy set of poltroons’’’ said Clopin. “Shall we leaye our sister behind, to be hanged to-morrow by these cowled wolves?” . And the sacristy too, where there are cart-loads of gold ?”’ added a ager: whose hame we regret our inability to record. * Beard of Mahound !” ejaculated Trouillefos. “Lot us make one more trial.” said the preceding beat the perteniite of Lectoure at s,ewi speaker. Again Matthias Hunyadi shook his head. “ We shall not get in at the door, that’s certain.” . “Ishall go back,” said Clopin “Who will come with me? By-the-by, where is little Jeh the stu- dent, who had cased himself up tc the eyes steel ?”’ “ Dead, no doubt, replied some one “I have not heard his laugh for some time.” The King of Thunes knitted his brow. ‘ More’s the pity ! He carried a bold heart under tiat iron shell— und Master Pierre Gringoire, what is become of him ?’ “Captain Clopin,’’ said Andry the Red, “ he sneaked off as sv0n us we had reached the Pont-inx-Changeurs.”’ Clopin stamped, “ ’Sdeath! the coward! To urge us into this affuir and then leave us in the lurch !” “Captain,” cried Andry the Red, who was looking down the Rue du Parvis, “yonder comes the little scholar.”’ . | “Thanks be to Pluto !" rejoined Clopin. “But what the devil is he dragginy after him ?”’ It was actually Jehan, who was advancing as expedi- tiously as he could tor his heavy warlike accouter- ments and a long Jadder which, with the aid of half-a- dozen of the gang, he was trailing along the pavement, more out of breath than a pismire dragying a blade of 8s twenty times av long asitself, . “Victory! Te Deum!" shouted the scholar, | Clopin went up to him. “ Whatin the devil’s name. are you going at with that ladder?” | , « IT have got it,” replied Jehan, panting and blowing. “I knew where it was kept—under the shed belonging to The lieutenant’s house. J am acquainted with one ‘*@ church ; crouching in the dark behind one of the royal mit , Jor an immense serpent with iron scales hae fait against the church, | eid The scholar at length touched the ) an® nimbly leaped uponit. He was greeted by a gencrad showt from the whole gang. .Thus master of the cite ‘wl he joinedinthe hurrahs, but all at once he wae viruck dumb with horror. He perceived Quasimods uce and his eye flashing fire. rs Before a second > me besie could set foot on thc. gallery, the turmidable hunchback s ar vem _— a ee a word, x | ot the two sides w 8 nervous hands, ar ed them from the wall with superhuman . The lo ig, ladder, bending under the load of a : party, whose piercing shrieks rent the air, stood u right for a moment, and seemed to hesitate ; then, al’ at once taking a tremendous lurch, it fell with its loud of banditti more swiftly than a drawbridge when the chains that have held it have broken. An immense imprecation ensued ; presently all wae silent, and here and tlere a mangled weetel wled iorth from beneath the heap of the dea‘. Quasimodo, iaeiag with his two elbows upon the balustrade locked. quietly ou , “es Jehan Frollo found himself in a critical Separated from his comrades by a perpendicular | ot eighty feet, he was alone in the oo. with the fur midabie bell-ringer. While Q odo was with the ladder, the scholar had run to the p which he had expected to find upon the latch. “He whe disappointed. The dwarf had locked it after when he went down to the gallery. Jehan theh hid Linike!? behind one of the stone kinys, h his breath, gare: vyeing the monstrous hunchiback with a look of horror. like the man who having scraped ete es with the wife of a keeper of wild beasts went one tm, pursuance of an assignation, anil, s vm Fa wrong wall, found himself all at Once face to face with a prodigious white bear. For some moments he was. not observed by Quasimodo, who at length chancing to turn his head, and perceiving the scholar,. sudiunly started up, : | Jehan prepared Himself for a rude encounter: the hunchback stvod stock still, merely fixing his eye in- tently upon the scholar. “Hoho!” Seles. “why dost thou look at me so spitefully?’ With these words. the hair-brained youth slyly adjusted his st, “sQuasimodo,” cried he, “I will change = ame ; instead of the deaf thou shalt henceforth called the blind.” The feathered shuit whizzed and pi the lett arm. of the bell-ringer. Dg "Beedoa if no more than he would have d. ne the scratch of apin, He luid hold of the quarrel, drew it from his arm, and calinly broke it upon his massive knee; he then dropped - rather than threw the pieces ovet the balustrade. Jehan bad not time to discharge asecond. Quasimv. do, having broken the arrow, suddenly drew in hi breath, leaped like a grasshopper, and fell wpon ti scholar, whose armor was flattened against the wall 1. the shock. A tremendous sight was thien seen in tl. chiarvscuro produced by the faint ght of the torcle: Quasimodo grasped with his left 1 ee the two arnis a che < Pek eerere even to , 80 Com- ie De feel himeelf oy his ght the he ope age off in crpowered. wit nous de ; parte iene Sadliper ae et, tee m- . Cisat. fo toive ie he ena or eee walnut. He threw the iro the ac | by piece, af his feet. * $ ~ When J Ehboo com tothe top of * ho u found himeelf stripped, digerm ed, power '