Quasimodo had halted within the central doorway. His broad feet seemed to rest as solidly on the floor of the church as the heavy Roman pillars themselves. His great shock head was sunk between his shoulders like that of a lion, which likewise has a mane but no neck. The trembling girl hung in his horny hands like a white drapery; but he held her with anxious care, as if fearful of breaking or brushing the bloom off her— as if he felt that she was something delicate and exquisite and precious, and made for other hands than his. At moments he seemed hardly to dare to touch her, even with his breath; then again he would strain her tightly to his bony breast as if she were his only possession, his treasure— as the mother of this child would have done. His cyclops eye, bent upon her, enveloped her in a flood of tenderness, of grief, and pity, and then rose flashing with determined courage. Women laughed and cried, the crowd stamped with enthusiasm, for at this moment Quasimodo had a beauty of his own. Verily, this orphan, this foundling, this outcast, was wonderful to look upon: he felt himself august in his strength; he looked that society from which he was banished, and against whose plans he had so forcefully intervened, squarely in the face; he boldly defied that human justice from which he had just snatched its prey, all these tigers now forced to gnash their empty jaws, these myrmidons of the law, these judges, these executioners— this whole force of the King which he, the meanest of his subjects, had set at naught by the force of God.

Then, too, how affecting was this protection offered by a creature so misshapen to one so unfortunate— a girl condemned to death, saved by Quasimodo!— the extremes of physical and social wretchedness meeting and assisting one another.

Meanwhile, after tasting his triumph for a few brief moments, Quasimodo suddenly plunged with his burden into the church. The people, ever delighted at a display of prowess, followed him with their eyes through the dim nave, only regretting that he had so quickly withdrawn himself from their acclamations. Suddenly he reappeared at one end of the gallery of royal statues, which he traversed, running like a madman, lifting his booty high in his arms and shouting “Sanctuary!” The plaudits of the crowd burst forth anew. Having dashed along the gallery, he vanished again into the interior of the Cathedral, and a moment afterward reappeared on the upper platform, still bearing the Egyptian in his arms, still running madly, still shouting “Sanctuary!” and the multitude still applauding. At last he made his third appearance on the summit of the tower of the great bell, from whence he seemed to show exultingly to the whole city the woman he had rescued, and his thundering voice— that voice which was heard so seldom, and never by him at all, repeated thrice with frenzied vehemence, even into the very clouds: “Sanctuary! Sanctuary! Sanctuary!”

“Noël! Noël!” roared the people in return, till the immense volume of acclamation resounded upon the opposite shore of the river to the astonishment of the crowd assembled in the Place de Grève, and among them the recluse, whose hungry eye was still fixed upon the gibbet.