, petrified.
He had just caught sight of Quasimodo concealed in the dark, with
flashing eye, 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, without uttering
a word, seized the ends of the two uprights with his powerful hands,
raised them, pushed them out from the wall, balanced the long and pliant
ladder, loaded with vagabonds from top to bottom for a moment, in the
midst of shrieks of anguish, then suddenly, with superhuman force,
hurled this cluster of men backward into the Place. There was a moment
when even the most resolute trembled. The ladder, launched backwards,
remained erect and standing for an instant, and seemed to hesitate, then
wavered, then suddenly, describing a frightful arc of a circle eighty
feet in radius, crashed upon the pavement with its load of ruffians,
more rapidly than a drawbridge when its chains break. There arose an
immense imprecation, then all was still, and a few mutilated wretches
were seen, crawling over the heap of dead.

A sound of wrath and grief followed the first cries of triumph among
the besiegers. Quasimodo, impassive, with both elbows propped on the
balustrade, looked on. He had the air of an old, bushy-headed king at
his window.

As for Jehan Frollo, he was in a critical position. He found himself in
the gallery with the formidable bellringer, alone, separated from his
companions by a vertical wall eighty feet high. While Quasimodo was
dealing with the ladder, the scholar had run to the postern which he
believed to be open. It was not. The deaf man had closed it behind him
when he entered the gallery. Jehan had then concealed himself behind
a stone king, not daring to breathe, and fixing upon the monstrous
hunchback a frightened gaze, like the man, who, when courting the wife
of the guardian of a menagerie, went one evening to a love rendezvous,
mistook the wall which he was to climb, and suddenly found himself face
to face with a white bear.

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 remained
motionless; only he had 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 spo