Chapter XVIII.

Quasimodo To The Rescue

"Citizens of Paris," boomed Claude Frollo's voice so that the entire crowd that had gathered in the square beneath Notre Dame could hear what was being said. "These gypsies have disobeyed. They dance in the streets, practice witchcraft," he droned on and on. His list was quite extensive, and most of it was made up. But I guess that when you are the archdeacon of Paris, nobody cares about those things, they just want to see a good hanging.

"It is evil such as this," he continued, "that prompts us to their execution."

Turning to one of the soldiers, he muttered, "bring out that gypsy girl Esmeralda."

"Yes sir."

In the other end of the square, a separate cart pulled by a scrawny brown mule rattled towards the cathedral's doors. It stopped in front of Claude Frollo. In it, was none other than Esmeralda.

I couldn't believe what I saw. She looked terrible! Black, blue and red bruises and cuts scarred her beautiful brown face and her raven colored hair had lost its glossy sheen. Her clothes were torn and mottled and her usually sparkling green eyes were dull and gray.

Claude Frollo hadn't been joking when he had told us that the confession was 'beaten out of her.' What had once been beautiful and happy was now sad and broken. Tears slid down Esmeralda's cheeks.

Claude Frollo resumed his speech. "Here's the worst of them all!" he cried to the crowd. "This gypsy witch that they call Esmeralda, has murdered the captain of the Royal Archers, our very own Phoebus de Chateaupers."

"No she didn't!" I couldn't help shout out. "And Phoebus is not dead. We saw him last night at the Court of Miracles. He took us captive! He was fine, the knife wound was healed!"

The archdeacon looked at me with a vicious glare of contempt and hatred. "Be quiet you insolent gypsy vermin!" he growled.

Suddenly, the loud sound of creaking hinges was heard as one of Notre Dame's magnificent wooden doors opened. From the dark, cavernous interior of the cathedral, a line of monks emerged. Solemnly, the sang one of their eery chants in some strange language that I couldn't decipher. Probably Latin or something. It seemed as though all the Catholic priests and monks spoke that language.

Claude Frollo turned from the crowd, to all of us, huddled together in the carts.

"Have you all asked God to forgive your sins before you leave our world?" he asked all of us, a hint of amusement in his voice. Then he turned to Esmeralda and began to whisper in her ear. I couldn't understand what he was saying to her, but I could make out a few phrases: "it's not too late," and "I can still save you."

When he was done, he looked Esmeralda, smiling. "Well? Have you decided?"

Esmeralda glared at him. "Be yours?" she shrieked at him. "Never! I'd rather die. Not even hell can unite us. Leave me alone you corrupt priest."

The smile on Claude Frollo's face vanished. His face grew red and his lips curled back into a sort of snarl.

"Fine gypsy! Have it your way! I hope you enjoy hell because that's exactly where you and all of your gypsy comrades from the Court of Miracles are going! As of now, the Court of Miracles is no more! Soldiers! Take these lowly vagabonds to the Gréve to be hanged at the gallows!"

With that, the carts that we were being contained in began to rattle away across the pavement of cobblestones and out of the square.

"Esmeralda! I'll save you!" a voice suddenly cried out. The voice was familiar. Very familiar. It was coming from above. I looked up at the bell towers of Notre Dame. They looked like to giants, rising up over Paris. But wait, there was somebody up there! Against the afternoon sky, it was clear that the hunchbacked silhouette was Quasimodo. But what was he doing? That question was soon answered. Hanging tightly to a rope that was tied securely to one of the gargoyles protruding from the balcony at the top of the bell tower, Quasimodo swooped down into the square like a monkey swinging on a vine through the African rainforest.

The bustling, gossiping noise of the square was silent as everybody watched the hunchback. Not even Frollo could say anything as he watched his adoptive son land on the ground feet first in front of the cathedral with the grace of a swan. For one thing, no one had ever imagined that a creature as deformed as Quasimodo could move with such cat-like agility, and for another thing, nobody had the slightest idea of what he was going to do.

"Coming through, move it!" Quasimodo shouted as he made his way through the crowd towards the carts that were taking us towards the Gréve. More specifically, he was heading to the small wood-slatted cart that Esmeralda was in.

"Quasimodo!" she cried as the hunchback jumped into the cart and unbound her arms and legs. She was overjoyed to see him. None of the soldiers even made an attempt to stop what was going on; they were probably scared of Quasimodo.

Picking up Esmeralda in his strong arms, he leaped out of the cart and rushed back to the cathedral.

By now, the stunned crowd had been brought back to their senses and Claude Frollo was chuckling.

"My dear boy Quasimodo," he said smilingly wickedly. "Taking your gypsy beauty back inside the cathedral will do her no good this time. The Parliament of Paris has stripped her of her sanctuary there. If you take her inside, we will still hang her."

Quasimodo's beaming face frowned with dispair and sadness. Then his face lit up again and he flashed a toothless grin at the crowd. Before any of the people could understand what was happening, Quasimodo dashed away behind the cathedral towards the river bank. Esmeralda was still in his arms.

"After them!" Frollo roared. Immediately, everybody in the square; soldiers, clergy and townspeople alike stampeded in the direction that Quasimodo and Esmeralda had gone. The rest of the gypsies and I were left alone in the square, still bound inside the carts.

"Djali!" Clopin whispered to the goat, also bound in one of the carts. The little goat looked over at him with her beaming intelligent eyes.

"Chew!" Clopin said to her, making exaggerated motions with his jaws so she could understand what he meant.

Djali, who really was a very intelligent little goat understood immediately and because goats have such strong jaws and teeth and will eat just about anything, she chewed through her ropes in no time. Now that she was free, she walked over to Clopin and unbound him as well.

"Good Djali," Clopin said affectionately, patting the little goat on the head.

"All right," Clopin said to all of us. "We're going to escape!"

We all cheered.

"But what about Esmeralda?" somebody asked.

"I'm sure she'll be fine," Clopin said assumingly. "But first let's get out of here!"

"Where are we going?" I asked, as we all untied each other.

"Back to the Court of Miracles," Clopin replied. "We'll get our belongings, and then we must flee the country!"

When we returned to the catacombs however, we were devastated to find that the soldiers had looted it and stolen most of our belongings, or simply destroyed them.

"I guess after they took us away, some of them stayed around to make sure that there wasn't anybody hiding and then decided to just trash the place," Marcel reasoned.

I nodded. The thing is, even though the Court of Miracles was underneath Paris in the catacombs, a place where dead bodies are put, we had fixed it up so that it had felt like home. Well, not anymore. Now it was littered and destroyed and not even the sewer rats would want to live here.

"Everybody gather around," Clopin called sadly. "It seems as if the Court of Miracles really is gone. No matter I guess, we have to leave anyway. The royal archers and Frollo will come here to look for us soon, so gather up any remnants that you can find, and then we must leave Paris I'm afraid. We'll go somewhere safer, maybe…Spain perhaps? I hear that there are many gypsies there and they don't have the same troubles that we do."

We all nodded. But not because we wanted to leave Paris. None of us did. Paris was our home. It was sad to think that we'd never again be able to fish along the Seine River, or listen to the monks chanting inside Notre Dame at mass every Sunday, or hear the grand cathedral's bells ringing. That was over. We were fleeing from our home, and leaving France, the country that I had begun to love so much.