Chapter 6:
There was that "kind" and "virtuous" Captain who'd swept to her rescue just that day, ordering that she ought to be arrested for offering mercy to an innocent torture victim. If she ever got the chance, she would make him pay for his betrayal.
There was no time to fume, however. Her distraction method was a little more rushed than she would have preferred, but luckily she knew the show grounds better than any soldier.
"Let me see," she said, counting off each of the soldiers who approached her, "one, two, three, four, five… six seven eight nine, so there's ten of you and one of me…" she paused to take pride in knowing all the French words for the first ten numbers before she pulled her handkerchief with the rolled up ball of flash powder in its corner. "What's a poor girl to do?" she asked as she affected tears. She then pretended to blow her nose, and instead blew on the powder, sending it everywhere.
While horses reared and people shouted their surprise, Esmeralda scurried away from Quasimodo and allowed them to see her again when she was posed beside the execution scaffold, where Djali followed her.
"Oh boys!" she taunted, "Over here!"
Now they were following her again, and all she had to do was playfully prance through the fair grounds. She played off their every attack, and made a fool of them every chance she got. Still, she wondered where her family was. Clopin, at least, ought to be there to assist her…
Well, no matter, she had to focus on her escape!
Two men on stilts lifted her up and let her stand upon a pavilion, where she and Djali stood out of reach. With a dramatic drum roll in her ears, she took hold of a large cloth tarp, and did a quick spin. As she did, she hunched down and grabbed Djali around the middle. With one hand firmly around the back of the cloth canopy, she slid down the back and wrapped herself and Djali in the cloak she often disguised herself in. With that, she slipped unnoticed into the shadows.
All the shouting and frantic scrambling ended the moment she was out of sight. There was dread in the silence, as festival goers of every stripe awaited the punishment Claude Frollo would mete out upon them.
From her new perch in the shadows of a tent, Esmeralda watched what happened next as if it were a pantomimed morality play, as the voices were beyond her ken.
The imperious judge stood over the Bell Ringer, whose back was cruelly exposed to the pelting icy lash of a thousand raindrop whips. The shattered young fellow crumbled further to the ground as the Captain in his sunshine armor seemed out of place amidst all the gray.
Esmeralda vowed that she would avenge herself on the Captain soon enough, but as it stood, she waited for the Bell Ringer to enter the Cathedral, out of the rain.
She could hear Frollo ordering his men to seek her out, and so as the rain began to fall in earnest, she hid herself away in the church, hoping that would at least offer her an escape.