hen they had reared a tall ladder to the first
gallery, and had crowded it with men, Quasimodo, by sheer force, pushed
the ladder away, and it tottered and fell right back. The battle only
ended on the arrival of a large company of King's Archers, when the
vagrants, defeated by Quasimodo, retired fighting.

While the battle raged Claude Frollo, with the aid of a disreputable
young student of his acquaintance, persuaded Esmeralda to leave the
church by a secret door at the back, and to escape by the river. The
priest was so hidden in his cloak that the girl did not recognise him
till they were alone in the city. In the Greve, at the foot of the
public scaffold where the gallows stood, Claude Frollo made his last
appeal.

"Listen!" he said. "I have saved you, and I can save you altogether, if
you choose. Choose between me and the gibbet!"

There was silence, and then Esmeralda said, "It is less horrible to me
than you are."

He poured out his soul passionately, telling her that his life was
nothing without her love, but the girl never moved.

It was daylight now.

"For the last time, will you be mine?"

She answered emphatically, "No!"

Then he called out as loud as he could, and presently a body of armed
men appeared. Soon the public hangman was aroused, and the execution
which had been interrupted by Quasimodo's heroic rescue was carried out.

Meantime, what of Quasimodo?

He had rushed to her cell when the king's troops, having beaten off the
vagrants, entered the church, and it was empty! Then he had explored
every nook and cranny of Notre Dame, and again and again gone the round
of the church. For an hour he sat in despair, his body convulsed by
sobs.

Suddenly he remembered that Claude Frollo had a secret key, and decided
that the priest must have carried her off.

At that very moment Claude returned to Notre Dame, after handing over
Esmeralda to the hangman. Quasimodo watched him ascend to the balustrade
at the top of the tower, and then followed him; the priest's attention
was too absorbed to hear the hunchback's step.

Claude rested his arms on the balustrade, and gazed intently at the
gallows in the Greve. Quasimodo tried to make out what it was the priest
stared at, and then he recognised Esmeralda in the hangman's arms on the
ladder, and in another second the hangman had done his work.

A demoniac laugh broke from the livid lips of Claude Frollo; Quasimodo
could not hear this laughter, but he