Chapter 21- Despondent
Quasimodo was slowly beginning to come round into consciousness when he began to feel the sensation of being dragged across a very cold, wooden floor by two hands placed very firmly on both of his arms.
"Look, he's beginnin' to wake up, wha' shall we do? He'll probably kill us when he finds out what we're doin'. Think of wha' he did to us earlier, you know he'll be capable of it," whispered one of the soldiers as he took a glance at Quasimodo's partly closed eyes whilst trying to maintain his grip on the bell ringer's broad left arm.
"Nah, the monster will be too weak from faintin' to do anything like that now," scorned the second solider, grasping as tightly as he could onto Quasimodo's other broad arm.
The soldiers remained silent as they hauled the bell ringer's limp body with all their might out of the dark stairwell and onto the lever below the bell tower that had numerous thick, stone pillars placed parallel to each other on the sides of the path ahead of them.
Both guards knew Quasimodo would somehow have been able to escape the bell tower even if they did lock the door, so they had decided earlier to chain him to these many stone pillars instead in order to greatly increase the chance of him not escaping this time.
The two guards stopped heaving Quasimodo when he was positioned directly in between two of the rock-solid pillars.
"Get the chains," murmured the guard who'd been gripping onto Quasimodo's right arm to which the other guard dashed back into the stairwell before slowly emerging, carrying a large mound of chains spiralled around each other like snakes in his shaking arms.
He stumbled over to the guard standing beside the now kneeling Quasimodo who helped him unwind the chains from the pile before attaching the motionless bell ringer to the various pillars beside him. They deliberately used up all the many chains in the large pile in order to be absolutely certain the bell ringer couldn't escape since they were well aware of his phenomenal strength. They fastened the chains to every bit of his body- his legs, arms, torso, even his neck- and wound them through as many pillars as possible, decorating them like tinsel on a Christmas tree.
Once they had fastened every chain on Quasimodo to the pillars and pulled tight, the soldiers grinned maliciously to each other before heading towards the stairwell and disappearing into the darkness.
Quasimodo had now completely come round to see his body inescapably bound by chains to the rock- hard pillars scattered around him.
He edged towards the edge of the tall Cathedral to notice a wooden platform illuminated by the moon in the sky above that had been placed in the middle of the square below him. His eyes drifted to the noose that was hanging limply on the beam above it that had been positioned on the platform. It suddenly occurred to him.
Now knowing exactly who that noose was for gave him a dull ache in his chest. He merely sighed once before bowing his head dejectedly. In a few hours, he was going to lose the kindest person he'd ever met, the dearest friend he'll ever have.
It was hopeless, utterly hopeless.