lse had been given, the King of Thunes had set the example.
Evidently, the bishop was defending himself, and they only battered the
door with the more rage, in spite of the stones which cracked skulls
right and left.

It was remarkable that all these stones fell one by one; but they
followed each other closely. The thieves always felt two at a time, one
on their legs and one on their heads. There were few which did not
deal their blow, and a large layer of dead and wounded lay bleeding
and panting beneath the feet of the assailants who, now grown furious,
replaced each other without intermission. The long beam continued to
belabor the door, at regular intervals, like the clapper of a bell, the
stones to rain down, the door to groan.

The reader has no doubt divined that this unexpected resistance which
had exasperated the outcasts came from Quasimodo.

Chance had, unfortunately, favored the brave deaf man.

When he had descended to the platform between the towers, his ideas were
all in confusion. He had run up and down along the gallery for several
minutes like a madman, surveying from above, the compact mass of
vagabonds ready to hurl itself on the church, demanding the safety of
the gypsy from the devil or from God. The thought had occurred to him of
ascending to the southern belfry and sounding the alarm, but before
he could have set the bell in motion, before Marie's voice could have
uttered a single clamor, was there not time to burst in the door of the
church ten times over? It was precisely the moment when the locksmiths
were advancing upon it with their tools. What was to be done?

All at once, he remembered that some masons had been at work all day
repairing the wall, the timber-work, and the roof of the south tower.
This was a flash of light. The wall was of stone, the roof of lead, the
timber-work of wood. (That prodigious timber-work, so dense that it was
called "the forest.")

Quasimodo hastened to that tower. The lower chambers were, in fact, full
of materials. There were piles of rough blocks of stone, sheets of lead
in rolls, bundles of laths, heavy beams already notched with the saw,
heaps of plaster.

Time was pressing, The pikes and hammers were at work below. With a
strength which the sense of danger increased tenfold, he seized one
of the beams--the longest and heaviest; he pushed it out through a
loophole, then, grasping it again outside of the tower, he made it slide
along the angle of the