And from inside that bell with every crash and bang and gong this small voice shouted: "Help!"
The boys looked at Moundshroud.
Their eyes blazed a question:
Pipkin?
Meet me in the air! thought Tom. And there he is!
There, hung upside down over Paris, his head for a knocker, was Pipkin in a bell. Or the shadow, ghost, or lost spirit of Pipkin, anyway.
Which is to say there was a bell and when it sounded the hour, why that sound was made by a flesh-and-blood clapper which knocked the rim. Pipkin's head banged the bell. Bong! And again: Bong!
"Knock his brains out," gasped Henry-Hank.
"Help!" called Pipkin, a shadow in the bell, a ghost chained upside down to strike the quarters and the hours.
"Fly!" cried the boys to their brooms, but their brooms lay dead on the Paris stones.
"No life in them," mourned Moundshroud. "Juice, sap, and fire all gone. Well, now." He rubbed his chin to sparks. "How do we get up to help Pipkin, with no brooms?"
"You fly, Mr. Moundshroud."
"Ah, no, that's not the ticket. You must save him, always and forever, again and again, this night, until one grand salvation. Wait. Ah! Inspiration. We were going to build Notre-Dame, correct? Well then, let us by all means build it, there! and climb our way up to hard-skulled knock-the-bell sound-the-hour Pipkin! Hop it, lads! Climb those stairs!"
"What stairs?"
"These! Here! Here! And here!"
Bricks fell in place. The boys leaped. And as they put a foot up, out, and down, a stair came under it, one stone at a time.
Bong! said the bell.
Help! said Pipkin.
Feet galloping empty air came down to tap, rustle, clomp on--
A step. Another step.
And yet another and another climbing empty space.
Help! said Pipkin.
Bong! again went the hollow bell.
So they ran on emptiness, with Moundshroud prodding, shoving after. They ran on pure windy light only to have bricks and stones and mortar shuffle like cards, deal themselves solid, take form beneath their toes and heels.
It was like racing up through a cake that built itself layer on stone layer, and the wild bell and sad Pipkin shouting and pleading them on.
"Our shadow, there it is!" said Tom.
And indeed the shadow of this cathedral, this splendid Notre-Dame, was tossed by moonlight all across France and half of Europe.
"Up, boys, up; no pause, no rest, run!"
Bong!
Help!