The Hunchback of Notre Dame - Victor Hugo [216]
It is impossible to picture the mingled consternation and affright which overcame the bandits with the fall of this beam. They stood for some moments staring into the air, more dismayed by that fragment of wood than by twenty thousand of the king’s archers.
“Satan!” growled the Duke of Egypt; “that smells of sorcery!”
“It must be the moon which flung that log at us,” said Andry le Rouge.
“Why,” replied François Chanteprune, “they say the moon is a friend of the Virgin Mary!”
“By the Pope’s head!” exclaimed Clopin; “but you are a parcel of fools!” And yet even he could not explain the fall of the plank.
Meanwhile, nothing was to be seen upon the front of the cathedral, to the top of which the light of the torches did not reach. The heavy plank lay in the middle of the square, and loud were the groans of the wretched men who had received its first shock, and who had been almost cut in two upon the sharp edges of the stone steps.
The King of Tunis, his first dismay over, at last hit upon an explanation which seemed plausible to his companions:—
“Odds bodikins! Is the clergy defending itself? Then, sack! sack!”
“Sack!” repeated the rabble, with a frantic cheer. And they discharged a volley of cross-bows and hackbuts at the church.
At this sound the peaceable inhabitants of the houses round about were awakened; several windows were thrown open, and nightcaps and hands holding candles appeared at them.
“Fire at the windows!” roared Clopin. The windows were hastily closed, and the poor citizens, who had barely had time to cast a terrified glance at that scene of glare and tumult, returned to sweat with fear beside their wives, wondering if the witches were holding their revels in the square before Notre-Dame, or if the Burgundians had made another attack, as in ‘64. Then the husbands thought of robbery, the wives of violence, and all trembled.
“Sack!” repeated the Men of Slang; but they dared not advance. They looked at the church; they looked at the beam. The beam did not budge, the building retained its calm, deserted look; but something rooted the Vagrants to the spot.
“To work, I say, rebels!” shouted Trouillefou. “Force the door!”
No one stirred.
“Body o’ me!” said Clopin; “here’s a pack of fellows who are afraid of a rafter.”
An old rebel then addressed him:—
“Captain, it’s not the rafter that stops us; it’s the door, which is entirely covered with iron bars. Our pincers are of no use.”
“Well, what would you have to burst it in?” asked Clopin.
“Ah! we need a battering-ram.”
The King of Tunis ran bravely up to the much-dreaded beam, and set his foot upon it. “Here you have one,” he exclaimed; “the canons themselves have sent it to you.” And with a mocking salutation in the direction of the church, he added. “Thanks, gentlemen!”
This piece of bravado proved effective; the charm of the beam was broken. The Vagrants recovered their courage; soon the heavy log, lifted like a feather by two hundred sturdy arms, was furiously hurled against the great door which they had vainly striven to shake. Seen thus, in the dim light cast by the scanty torches of the Vagrants, that long beam borne by that crowd of men, who rapidly dashed it against the church, looked like some monstrous beast with countless legs attacking the stone giantess headforemost.
At the shock of the log, the semi-metallic door rang like a vast drum; it did not yield, but the whole cathedral shook and the deep vaults of the building re-echoed.
At the same moment a shower of large stones began to rain from the top of the façade upon the assailants.
“The devil!” cried Jehan; “are the towers shaking down their balustrades upon our heads?”
But the impulse had been given, the King of Tunis setting the example. The bishop was certainly defending himself; and so they only beat against the door with greater fury, despite the stones which cracked their skulls to right and left.
It is remarkable that these stones all fell singly, but they followed one another in rapid succession. The Men of Slang always felt two at a time,—one at their legs,