Beadle's New York Dime Library, No. 144 — page 54: what you’re looking at

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

B4 THE HUNCHBACK OF NOTRE-DAME. a « * then the king ia merciful! ‘Tis my daughter! mine, I! there, that she had been stolen away from him, he | were going out at different points, and there was still tell you! sheis not the king's! sheis uot yours: Iwill | slowly ascended the tower-stairs, those stairs which | a very — one in the east inthe lightest part of the be gone; we will both go. Who would stop two weak he had mounted with such transport and exultation | firmament, The sun was just rising, vere began to wo one of them the mother, the other the dangh-/ on the day thaf he saved her. He passed that be astir. A very white and a very pure presented tur. Letus pass,then! We are from Reims, Oh! you | way, with drooping hed, voiceless, rless, almost | conspicuously to the eye the facea which its thousand are very kind, Messieurs sergeants; I love you all. reathing. The church was once more clear, and | houses turn toward the east. Thegiant shadows of the Yuu will not take my darling from me—’tisimpossible. | silence again reigned within it. The archers had | steeples extended from roof to roof, from one end of th» f mg — == —E—EeE es, 2 ee ee ee ee = 4 rs . ‘The horror ~ jevel is it not? quite impossible! My child! My own dear | quitted the sacred edifice to track the sorceress in the great city to the other. There were arters which _—of their fatal in ehild t”’ city. Quasimodo, left alone in the vast cathedral, We shall not attempt to convey any idea of her; ringing but a few moments before with the clamors gestures, of her tone, of the tears which she swallowed as she spoke, of her hands which sheclasped and then wrung, of the cutting smiles, the moans, the sighs, the heartrending shrieks which she blended with this wild, rambling, and incoherent harangue. When she had done, Tristan the Hermit knitted his brow, but it waa concea) a tear which started into his tiger-like eye. nquering this weakness, however, he said in a dry tone, “ The king wills it.” Then bending to the ear of Henriet Cousin, he whispered, *‘ Finish out of hand!” The redoubt- ble provost himself perhaps telt even his heart fail The hangman and the sergeant entered the cell. The mother made no resistance; she merely crawled toward her daughter, and threw herself headlong upon er. The ath roused her. in atone of inexpressible anguish, coming; defend me!"’ ‘* Yes, my love, I will defend thee,” replied the mother in a faint voice; and, clasp- ing her closely in her arms, she covered her with | kisses. Mother and daughter, as they thus lay on the ground, presented a sight that was pitiable. Henriet Cousin lai Egyptian saw the soldiers approaching. | Oo “ Mother,” cried she, | mustered courage, advanced on tiptoe, looked in, en- ** mother, they are | stupor. hold of the girl round the | n of the besiegers, returned toward the cell, where the Egyptian had slept so many weeks under his guar- dianship. As he approached it he could not help fancying that he might perhaps find her there again. When, at the turn of the gallery which opens upon the roof of the aisles, he perceived the narrow cabin ‘With its small window and its little door, clapped under a great flying buttress, like 4 bird’s nest under a bough, his heart failed him, poor fellow! and he leant against a pillar, lest he should fall. He im- agined that she might perhaps have returned thither ; that a good genius had, no doubt, brought her back ; that this little cell was too quiet, too safe, too charm- ing for her not to be there; and he durst not take another step for fear of destroying the illusion. “Yes,’’ said he to himself, ‘‘ perhaps she is asleep, or praying. Let us not disturb her.” At length he tered. Empty! the cell was still empty! The un- happy hunchback slowly paced round it, lifted up the bed and looked under it, as though she could have hidden between the mattress andthe floor. He then shook his head, and remained for a while in a state of All at once he furiously trampled upon his torch, and without word or sigh he frantically dashed When she felt the touch of his hand she! his head against the wall, and fell swooning to the y. shuddered “ Heugh !"’ from whosé eyes and fainted. The hangman, ig tears fell drop by drop wpon ter, | pavement. When his senses returned, he threw himselfupon the attempted to lift her, but was prevented by the motuer. | bed, he rolled upon it, he wildly kissed the spot where who waist, and clung so firmly to her child, that it was impossible to part them. Henriet Cousin, therefore, dragged the girl out of the cell, and the mother after her—the latter, too, with her eyes shut and apparently insensible. The sun was just then rising, and a considerable number of people collected thus early in the Place were striving to make out what it was thatthe hangman was thus aggin along the pavement towardthe gibbet ; for it w stan’s way to prevent the near approach of tators at executions. ; ere was a creature at the windows. There were not only to be seen on the top of that tower of Notre- Dame which overlooks the Greve, two men standing ont in dark relief from the clear morning sky, who ap- peared to be be looking on. Henriet Cousin stopped with what he waa dragging at the foot of the fatal ladder, and scarcely breuthing, so deeply wak he aifected, he slipped the cordabout the neck of the girl. The unfortunate ‘creature felt the horrid touch of the rope. She opened her eyes, and beheld the hideous arm of the stone gibbet extended over her head. Rousing herself, she cried in aloud and heart-rending voice, ‘No! no! I will hot.” The mother, whose tace was buried in her daughter's ts, uttered not a word; her whole body was mn to ble,and she was heard to kiss her child oubled fervency. The hangman took advan- of this moment to wrench asunder her arms with h she had clung to the condemned girl. Either austion, or despair, she had no resis- ce. then lifted the damsel on his shoulder; m which the charming creature hung on either side, and began to ascend the ladder, At that moment the mother, crouched on the pave- ment, opened her eyes. Without uttering a cry, she up with a terrific look; then, like a beast of y, she seized the hand of the bangman and bit aim. It was like lightning. The executioner roared : Some of the sergeants ran to him. With difficulty they extricated his bleeding hand from the teeth of the mother. She maintained profound silence. They thrust her back in a brutal manner, and it was remarked that her head fell heavily upon the pave- ment. They lifted her up, but again she sank to the ground, She was dead. _ The hangman, who had not set down the girl, con- tinued to mount the ladder. CHAPTER II, “LA CREATURA BELLA BIANCO VESTITA,.” WHEN Quasimodo ascertained that the cell was va- cant, that the Egyptian was not there, and that while he was defending her she had been taken away, he his head with both hands, and stamped with Tage and astonishment; he then began to run all over the church in t of the Bohemian, setting up strange shouts at every corner, and strewing his red hair — the pavement. It was the very moment when the king’s archers entered the cathédral victo- rious, also seeking the Egyptian. Quasimodo as- sisted them, havin ae tee deaf creature | ons ; it was the Vagabond crew | whom he regarded as the enemies of the tian. | He himself conducted Pristan the Hermit to every possible place of concealment, opened for him all the secret doors, the double-bottomed altars, and the | back zacristies, Had the untortunate girl been still there he must inevitably have betrayed her. When h was tired of the unsuccesstul search—and on such occasions he was net soon tired—Quasimodo ued it alone. He traversed the church twenty Seat ide 7" oe Eien, le gv eg prenensss, from top , mounting, cending, running, calling, crying, shouting, ferreting, rummaging, g his head into every hole, mares a torch t length, every dark corner, destracted, mad. when he was suse, quite sure, that she was no longer oe the approach of the entwined her arms round her daughter's | the damsel had lain; he remained thus for some min- ntes as motionless as if life had fled; he then rose, bathed in perspiration, panting, beside himself, and be- gan to beat his head against the wall with the frightful regularity of a pendultim, and the resolution of one who ig determined to dash out his brains, At iength, he fell a second time exhausted. Presently he crawled on his knees out of the celi, and crouched opposite to the door in an attitude of despair. In this state he continued for above an hour, without stirring, his eye fixed on the yacant cell, more gloomy and more thoughtful than a mother seated between an empty cradle and a full coffin. He uttered not a word, only at longintervals a sob violently shook his whole body, but it was a sob without tears, like those Summer lightnings which make no nolse. It appears that tlren, seeking mm his doleful reverie to discover whe could thus unexpectedly have carried off the Egyptian he bethought himself of the archdeacon. He recollected that none but Dom Claude hada key to the staircase leading to tne cell; he called to mind his nocturnal attempts upon the damsel,in the first of which he, Quaisimodo, himself had assisted, and the second of which he had frustrated ; he called to mind a thousand other circumstances, and soon telt not the least doubt that .t was the archdeacon who had taken the girl trom him. Such, however, was his respect tor the priest, sodeeply had gratitude, affection, love for that man struck root in his heart,that even at this moment they withstood the tugs of jealousy and bag ini 6 considered that the archdeacon had done this, and instead of the mortal rancor with whitch the thought would have filled his heart for any other, the mo- ment it fixed upon Claude Frollo, it only aggravated iis grief. At this moment, when the dawn began to whiten the fying buttresses, he descried on a higher story of the cathedral, at the angle formed by the outer balustrade which runs round the apsis, a figure in motion. -The face of this figure was turned toward him. He recognized the person. It was the archdeacon. Claude’s step was grave and deliberate. He looked not before him as he walked toward the north tower; but his face was turned askance toward the right bank of the Seine, as if he were striving to see sométhing over the intervening roofs. The owl frequently _— this oblique attitude, flying in one di- rection and looking in another. The priest thus passed on above Quasimodo without perceiving him. The hunchback, petrified by this sudden apparition, watched till he lost sight of him at the door of the staircase of the north tower. The reader already knows that this is the tower which commands a view of the Hotel-de-Ville. Quasimodo rose and followed the archdeacen, He went up the stairs to ascend the tower, for the urpose of ascertaining why the priest ascended it; fe indeed the poor bell-ringer, who knew not what he did, or what he wished, could be said to have any pur- pose. He wae full of rage an full of apprehension. he archdeacon and the Egyptian clashed together in his heart. When he had reached the top of the tower, before he issued from the darkness of the staircase and stepped out upon the platiorm, he leoked cautiously about to discover where the priest was. Claude had his back toward him. A baltistrade of open work surrounds the latform of the steeple. The priest, whose eyes were nt upon the town, was leaning with his breast against that eoenes ba the balustrade which looks down upon the bridge of Notre-Dame. - ‘Quasimodo Stole with wolf's step behind him, to see what he was thas looking at. The attention of the riest was so completel ee that he perceived un ; : Paris, viewed from the towers of Notre-Dame in the cool dawn of a Summer morning, is 4 cllarming and & magnificent sight ; and Paris of that eriod must have been eminently so. It was then the month of July, The sky was perfectly serena A few lingering stars already began to send forth various sounds, Here waa ‘heard the hammer of the smith, there that ofthe car- _penter, and yonder the complicated ‘cre g of a cart as it passed along the street. A few columns of smoke issued from different points of this vast surface of roofs, as trom the fissures of an immense solfatara. The river | which dashes its waters against the pions of s0 many bridges, and the points of so many islands was streaked with lines of silver. Around the city, beyond the ram- parts,the sight was lost in a wide circle of fleecy vapors, through which might be faintly discerned the in- definite line of the plains and the graceful swelling of the hills. All sorts of sounds floated confusedly over this half-awakend city. Toward the east the morning breeze drove across the sky a few white flakes rent from the mantle of mist that enwrapped the hills, In the Parvis, certain stirring housewives, with milk-jugsin their hands, pointed out to each other with astonishment the shattered state o. the great por- tal of Notre-Dame; and the two streams of lead con- gealed in the interstices between the stones of the pave- ment. These were only vestiges of the tumult of the past night. The fire kindled by Quasimodo between the towers was extinguished. Tristan had already caused the Place to be cleared, and the dead to be thrown intothe Seine. Such kings as Louis XI. take care to have the pavement speedily washed after a mas- | gacre, Outside the balustrade of the tower, below the very > point where the priest had stopped, there was one of those stone gutters fantastically carved, with which Gothic edifices are bristled, and ina crevice of this gutter were two fine wall-flowers mm blossom, which waved, and, as if they were animated by the breeze, seemed to be sportively bowing to each other. Above the towers, aloft in the air, small birds were heard twittering and screaming. But the priest neither heard nor saw any of these things. He was one of tliose who take no notice either of mornings, or of birds, or flowers. His contempla- tion was engrossed by ene only point of that immense horizon, which presented so many aspects around him. Quasimodo burned wi'h impatience to what he had done with the Egyptian 4 ut the ae ecated at that moment to be out of the wor th him. it was evidently oneof those critlcal ents of lile, when aman would not feel the umbling be- neath his feet. He remained motionless and silent, with his eyes invariable fixed on a icular spot; and this silence oe ry apes at siete — thing so formidable that t savage : sh dered betore avd durst not disturbit. All he de therefore, and this was one way of question the archdeacon, was to follow the direction of eye; and thus guided, that of the unhappy h fell upon the Place de Greve. é He now perceived what the priest was looking at. The ladder was set up against the permanent There pe. a lew 4 in the Place nee num- ber of soldiers. man was dragging along the pave- ment something white to which som 1 os ye was cli . This man stopped at the foot of the yvibbet. ~~. = took place he could not clearly Pe : not that the sight of his only eye was —— {mpaired, but a party of soldiers prevented his tinguishing what was going forward. Besides, at that momen! the sun burst forth and poured such @ flood of light above the horizon that every point of Paris, -. set on fire at one and neys, gables, seemed to samemoment, Meanwhile the man began to mount the ladder. Quasimodo now saw distinctly again. He carried across his shoulder a female, ® young female dressed in white, ne FOS female had a rope about her neck. Quasimode knew her. It was the Egyptian | The man reached the top of the ladder. ere he arranged therope. The priest, in order to see the bet- ter, now knelt down upou the balustrade. . The man suddenly kicked the ladder, and Quasi- modo, who had not breathed for some moments, suw the unfortunate girl, with the man crouched upon her shoulders, dangling at the end of the rope within two or three yards of the pavement, The rope made several revolutious, and Quasimodo saw the body of the victim writhe in frightful convulsions. 8 priest on his part, with outstretched neck and eyes starting from head, contemplated the terrific gone of the manand the young girl, the spider and the fly. At this most awful moment a demon laugh, a laugh such as one only who had ceased to be human is capa- ble of, burst forth upon the livid face of the priest. Quasimodo heard not this laugh, but he sawit. The bell-ringer recoiled a few steps trom the archdeacon, then suddenly rushing furiously upon him, thrust him with hix two hwye hands into the abyss, cver which Dom Claude was leaning. ‘ Damnation !" cried the priest as he fell. The gutter beneath caught him and broke the fall. He clung to it with eager hands, and was just opening his mouth to give a second cry, when he beheld the formidable and avenging face of Quasimodo protruded over — balustrade above his head. He was then silent. , The abyss was beneath him—a fall of more than two hundred feet and the pavement! . In this terrible situation, the archdeacon uttered neither word nor groan. Suspended from the gutter, he ‘wriggled, and made incredible efforts to raise himself upon it; but his hands had no hold of the grunite, and his toes 0)(6\(6) Goim (c (E() } | = a