True.
Nervous
very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am...
but why will you say that I am mad?
The disease had sharpened my senses...
not destroyed, not dulled them.
Above all was the sense of hearing acute.
I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth.
I heard many things in hell.
How, then, am I mad?
Hearken and observe how healthily...
how calmly I can tell you the whole story.
It is impossible to say...
how first the idea entered my brain...
but once conceived, it haunted me day and night.
Object there was none. Passion there was none.
I loved the old man. He had never wronged me.
He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire.
I I think it was his eye.
Yes, it was this.
One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture...
a pale blue eye with a film over it.
Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold.
And so, by degrees, very gradually...
I made up my mind to take the life of the old man...
and thus to rid myself of the eye forever.
Now this is the point. You fancy me mad.
Well, madmen know nothing, but you should have seen me.
You should have seen how wisely I proceeded...
with what caution, with what foresight.
I was never kinder to the old man...
than during the whole week before I killed him.
And every night, about midnight...
I turned the latch of his door...
and I opened it, oh, so gently.
And then, when I had made an opening...
sufficient for my head...
I put in a dark lantern...
all closed, closed so that no light shone out...
and then I thrust in my head.
Oh, you would have laughed to see...
how cunningly I thrust it in.
I moved it very slowly very, very slowly...
so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep.
It took me an hour...
to place my whole head within the opening...
so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed.
Now, would a madman have been so wise as this?
And then, when my head was well in the room...
I undid the lantern cautiously, oh, so cautiously.
I undid it just so much...
that a single thin ray fell upon the vulture eye.
This I did for 7 long nights, every night at midnight.
But I found the eye always closed...
and so it was impossible to do the work...
for it was not the old man who vexed me...
but his evil eye.
And every morning, when the day broke...
I I went boldly into the chamber...
and spoke courageously to him...
calling him by name in a hearty tone...
and inquiring how he had passed the night.
So, you see, he would have been...
a very profound old man indeed...
to suspect that every night, just at 12:oo...
I looked in upon him while he slept.
Upon the eighth night...
I was more than usually cautious in opening the door.
A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine.
Never before that night...
had I felt the extent of my own powers.
I I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph.
I had my head in the room...
and was about to open the lantern...
when my thumb slipped on the tin fastening...
and the old man sprang up in the bed...
crying out, "Who's there?"
I kept quite still and said nothing.
For a whole hour, I did not move a muscle.
And in the meantime, I did not hear him lie down.
He was still sitting up in the bed listening.
Presently I heard a slight groan...
and I knew it was the groan of long, drawn out mortal terror.
It was not a groan of pain or of grief. Oh, no.
No, it was the low, stifled sound that arises...
from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe.
I knew the sound well.
Many a night just at midnight, when all the world slept...
it had welled up from my own bosom...
deepening with its dreadful echo...
the terrors that that distracted me.
I say I knew it well.
I I knew what the old man felt...
and I pitied him, although I chuckled at heart.
I I knew that he had been lying awake...
ever since the first slight noise...
when he had turned in the bed.
His fears had been ever since growing upon him.
He had been trying to fancy them causeless...
but could not.
He had been saying to himself...
"It's nothing but the wind in the chimney."
"It's only a mouse crossing the floor."
"It is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp."
Yes.
Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself...
with these suppositions...
but he had found it all in vain...
because death, in approaching him...
had stalked with his black shadow before him...
and enveloped the victim.
He felt the presence of my head within the room.
When I had waited a long time, very patiently...
without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little...
a very, very little crevice in the lantern.
So I opened it...
oh, you cannot imagine how stealthily...
until at length, a single dim ray...
like the thread of a spider...
shot from out the crevice and full upon the vulture eye.
It was open.
Wide, wide open.
And I grew furious as I gazed upon it.
I saw it with perfect distinctness, all a dull blue...
with a hideous veil over it...
that chilled the very marrow of my bones.
But I could see nothing else...
of the old man's face or person...
for I had directed the ray, as if by instinct...
precisely on the damned spot.
Now, have I not told you...
that what you mistake for madness...
is but overacuteness of the senses?
Now, I say, there came to my ears...
a low, dull, quick sound...
such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton.
I knew that sound well, too.
It was the beating of the old man's heart.
It increased my fury as the beating of a drum...
stimulates the soldier to courage...
but even yet, I refrained and kept still.
I scarcely breathed.
Meantime, the hellish tattoo of the heart increased.
It grew quicker and quicker and quicker...
and louder and louder every instant.
The old man's terror must have been extreme.
It grew louder, I say louder every moment.
Do you mark me well?
I have told you that I am nervous. So I am.
And now, at the dead hour of the night...
amid the dreadful silence of this old house...
so strange a noise as this excited me...
to uncontrollable terror.
Yet for some minutes longer, I refrained and stood still.
But the beating grew louder and louder.
I thought the heart must burst.
And now a new anxiety seized me
the sound would be heard by a neighbor.
The old man's hour had come.
With a loud yell...
I threw the lantern and leapt into the room.
He shrieked... once, only once.
In an instant, I dragged him to the floor...
and pulled the heavy bed over him.
I then smiled gaily to find the deed so far done.
For many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound.
Still, this did not vex me.
It would not be heard through the wall.
And then, at last...
it ceased.
The old man was dead.
I removed the bed and examined the corpse.
Yes. Yes, he was stone, stone dead.
I placed my hand upon the heart...
and held it there for many minutes.
There was no pulsation.
He was stone dead.
His eye would trouble me no more.
Now, if you still think me mad...
you will think so no longer...
when I describe the wise precautions I took...
for the concealment of the body.
First I I dismembered the corpse.
I cut off the head and then the arms and the legs.
I then took up 3 planks from the flooring of the chamber...
and I deposited all beneath the floor.
I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly...
that no human eye, not even his...
could have detected anything wrong.
There was nothing to wash out
no stain of any kind...
no blood spot whatsoever.
I had been too wary for that.
A tub had caught it all.
And then, when I had made an end of these labors...
it was 4:oo...
still dark as midnight.
As the bell sounded...
there came a knocking at the street door.
I I went down to open it with a light heart...
for what had I now to fear?
There entered 3 men who introduced themselves...
with perfect suavity as officers of the police.
A shriek had been heard by a neighbor during the night.
Suspicion of foul play had been aroused...
and they, the officers...
had been dispatched to search the premises.
I smiled, for what had I to fear?
I bade the gentlemen welcome.
The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream.
The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country.
I took my visitors all over the house...
and I bade them search and search well.
I led them, at length, to his chamber.
I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed.
In the enthusiasm of my confidence...
I brought chairs into the room...
and desired them here to rest from their fatigues...
while I myself...
in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph...
placed my own feet upon the very spot...
beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.
The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them.
I was singularly at ease.
They sat, and while I answered cheerily...
they chatted familiar things.
But ere long, I felt myself getting pale...
and I wished them gone.
My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears.
But still they sat and they chatted.
The ringing became more distinct.
I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling...
but it continued and gained definitiveness...
until at length I I found that the noise was...
not within my ears.
It was a low, dull, quick sound...
such a such a sound as a watch makes...
when enveloped in cotton.
I gasped for breath, yet the officers heard it not.
I talked more quickly, more vehemently...
but the noise steadily increased.
I arose, and I argued about trifles...
but the noise increased steadily.
Why would they not be gone?
I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides...
as if excited to fury by the observation of the men...
but the noise steadily increased.
Oh, God. What could I do?
I foamed, I raved, I swore.
I swung the chair by which I had been sitting...
grated it upon the boards.
But the noise rose above all.
It it grew louder, louder...
and still the men chatted pleasantly and smiled.
Was it possible that they heard not?
Oh, almighty God, no. No, they heard.
They suspected.
They knew.
They were making a mockery of my horror.
I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer.
I felt that I must scream or die.
And now, again. Hark. Louder. Louder. Louder. Louder.
Villains, dissemble no more.
I admit the deed.
Tear up the planks. Here.
It is the beating of his hideous heart.
During the dread reign of cholera in New York...
I had accepted the invitation of a relative...
to spend a fortnight with him here...
in the retirement of his cottage on the banks of the Hudson.
We should have passed the time pleasantly enough...
but for the fearful news...
which reached us every morning from the populous city.
Not a day elapsed which did not bring us intelligence...
of the decease of some acquaintance.
We trembled at the approach of every messenger.
The very air from the city...
seemed to us redolent with death.
I could neither speak, think, nor dream of anything else.
My host was of a less excitable temperament.
To the realities of terror he was sufficiently alive...
but of its shadows, he had no apprehension.
I was not so fortunate...
and the palsying fears of evil and death...
had taken possession of my soul.
My state of mind had been well primed...
for the terrifying incident which soon took place.
Near the close of an exceedingly warm day...
I was alone, sitting with a book in hand...
at this window commanding...
through a long vista of the riverbanks...
a view of a distant hill...
the face of which nearest my position...
had been denuded, by a landslide...
of the principal portion of its trees.
My thoughts had been long wandering...
from the volume before me...
to the gloom and desolation of the neighboring city.
Uplifting my eyes from the page...
they fell upon the naked face of the hill and upon an object:
Upon some living monster of hideous conformation...
which, very rapidly, made its way...
from the summit to the bottom...
disappearing finally in the dense forest below.
As this creature first came in sight...
I doubted my own sanity, and many minutes passed...
before I succeeded in convincing myself...
that I was neither mad nor in a dream.
Estimating the size of the creature...
I concluded it to be far larger...
than any ship of the line in existence.
I say "ship of the line"...
because the shape of the monster suggested the idea.
The hull of one of our battleships might convey...
a very tolerable conception of the general outline.
The mouth of the animal was situated...
at the end of a tube some 6o or 7o feet in length...
and about as thick as the body of an ordinary elephant.
Near the root of this trunk...
was an immense quantity of black, shaggy hair...
more than could have been supplied...
by the coats of a score of buffalo.
And projecting from this hair downwardly and laterally...
sprang two gleaming tusks...
not unlike that of the wild boar...
but of infinitely greater dimension.
The body was fashioned like a wedge...
with a point toward the earth.
From it there were outspread two pairs of wings
each wing nearly 1oo yards in length...
one pair being placed above the other...
and all thickly covered with metal scales...
each scale apparently some 1o or 12 feet in diameter.
But the chief peculiarity of this horrible thing...
was the representation of a death's head...
which covered nearly the whole surface of its breast...
and which was as accurately traced in glaring white...
upon the dark ground of the body...
as if it had been carefully designed by an artist.
While I regarded this terrifying animal
and more especially, the appearance on its breast
with a feeling of horror and awe...
I perceived the huge jaws at the extremity of the trunk...
suddenly expand themselves.
And from them, there proceeded a sound...
so loud and so expressive of woe...
that it struck upon my nerves like a knell.
And as the monster disappeared at the foot of the hill...
I fell, almost fainting, to the floor.
Upon recovering...
my first impulse was to inform my friend...
of what I had seen and heard.
And I can scarcely explain...
what feeling of repugnance it was which...
in the end, operated to prevent me.
At length, one evening...
some 3 or 4 days after the occurrence...
we were sitting together in this room...
in which I had seen the apparition
I occupying the same seat at the same window...
and he lounging in this chair nearby.
The association of the place and time...
suddenly impelled me to give him an account of the phenomenon.
He heard me to the end.
At first, he laughed heartily...
and then he lapsed into an excessively grave demeanor...
as if my insanity was a thing beyond suspicion.
At this instant,
I again had a distinct view of the monster...
to which, with a shout of absolute terror...
I now directed his attention.
"Look. Look."
He looked eagerly but maintained that he saw nothing...
although I designated minutely the course of the creature...
as it made its way down the naked face of the hill.
I was now immeasurably alarmed...
for I considered the vision either as an omen of my death...
or worse, as a forerunner of an attack of madness.
I threw myself passionately back in the window seat...
and for some moments, I buried my face in my hands.
My host, however...
had in some degree resumed the calmness of his demeanor...
and questioned me very rigorously...
in respect to the conformation of the visionary creature.
When I had fully satisfied him on this head...
he sighed deeply, as if relieved of some intolerable burden...
and then he stepped to the bookcase...
and brought forth one of the ordinary synopses...
of natural history.
He then requested me to exchange seats with him.
He took my place at the window and...
opening the book, resumed his discourse.
"But for your minuteness," he said...
"in describing the monster...
"I might never have had it in my power...
"to demonstrate to you what it was.
"In the first place...
"let me read to you a schoolboy account...
"of the genus Sphinx of the family Crepuscularia...
"of the class of Insecta, or insects.
"The account runs thus:
"'4 membranous wings covered with little colored scales...
"'of metallic appearance:
"'Mouth forming a rolled tube...
"'produced by an elongation of the jaws...
"'upon the sides of which are found...
"'the rudiments of mandibles and downy palpae:
"'Abdomen pointed.
"'The death's headed
"'The death's headed sphinx has occasioned much terror...
"'among the unlearned...
"'by the melancholy kind of cry which it utters...
"'and the insignia of death...
which it wears upon its corselet."'
He closed the book and leaned back in the seat...
placing himself accurately in the position...
which I had occupied at the moment...
of beholding the monster.
"Ah, there it is," he exclaimed.
"It is reascending the face of the hill...
"and a very remarkable creature I admit it to be.
"Still, it is by no means so large...
"or so distant as you had imagined it.
"For the fact is...
"that as it wriggles its way up this thread...
"which some spider has wrought along the window sash...
"I find it to be about 1/16 of an inch...
"in its extreme length...
"and also about 1/16 of an inch distant...
from the pupil of my eye."
The thousand injuries of Fortunato...
I had borne as best I could...
but when he ventured upon insult...
I vowed revenge.
Now, you, who so well know the nature of my soul...
will not suppose, however...
that I gave utterance to a threat.
At length, I would be avenged.
I would not only punish, but punish with impunity.
It must be understood that neither by word nor deed...
had I given Fortunato cause to doubt my good will.
I continued to smile in his face...
but he did not perceive that my smile now...
was at the thought of his immolation.
He had a weak point, this Fortunato...
although in other regards, he was a man to be respected...
and even feared.
He prided himself in his connoisseurship of wine.
I was skillful in the Italian vintages myself...
and bought largely whenever I could.
It was about dusk one evening...
during the supreme madness of the carnival season...
that I encountered my friend.
He accosted me with excessive warmth...
for he had been drinking much.
The man wore the costume of a jester.
He had on tights...
and his head was surmounted by the conical cap and bells.
I was so pleased to see him that I thought...
I should never have done with wringing his hand.
I said to him, "My dear Fortunato...
"you are luckily met.
"How remarkably well you are looking today.
"Oh, I have received a keg of what passes for Amontillado...
and I have my doubts."
"How?" said he.
"Amontillado? A cask? Lmpossible.
And in the middle of the carnival?"
"Well, I have my doubts...
"and I was silly enough to pay the full Amontillado price...
"without consulting you in the matter.
"You were not to be found...
and I was fearful of losing a bargain."
"Amontillado? Amontillado?"
"Yes.
"As you are engaged, I am on my way to meet Luchesi.
"If anyone has a critical turn, it is he.
He will tell me."
"Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from sherry."
"And yet some fools will have it...
that his taste is a match for your own."
"Come. Let us go to your vault."
"Oh, my friend, no, I will not impose upon your good nature.
I perceive you have an engagement. Luchesi"
"I have no engagement. Come."
"My friend, no.
"It is not the engagement...
"but the severe cold with which I perceive you are afflicted.
"The vaults are insufferably damp.
They are encrusted with mold."
"Let us go nevertheless.
"The cold is merely nothing. Ha.
"Amontillado? You have been imposed upon.
"As for Luchesi...
he cannot distinguish sherry from Amontillado."
Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm.
I, putting on a mask of black silk...
and drawing a cape closely about my person...
suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.
Oh, there were no attendants at home.
They had absconded to make merry...
in honor of the time.
I took from their sconces two torches...
and, giving one to Fortunato...
bowed him through several suites of rooms...
to the archways that led into the vaults.
I passed down a long and winding staircase...
requesting him to be cautious as he followed.
We came at length to the foot of the descent...
and stood together on the damp ground...
of the catacombs of the Montresors my family.
The gait of my friend was unsteady...
and the bells on his jester's cap jingled...
as he strode.
"Where is the cask?"
"It is farther on, but observe the white webwork...
which gleams from these cavern walls."
"Mold?"
"Mold. Mold, yes.
How long have you had that cough?"
My poor friend found it impossible to reply...
for many minutes.
"It is nothing, nothing."
"Come, we will go back. Your health is precious.
"You are rich, respected, admired, beloved.
"You are a man to be missed. For me it is no matter.
"We will go back.
"You will be ill, and I cannot be responsible.
Besides, there is Luchesi."
"Enough, enough. The cough is a mere nothing.
It will not kill me. I shall not die of a cough."
"True, true.
"And, indeed...
"I had no intention of alarming you unnecessarily...
"but you should use all proper caution.
A draught of this Medoc will defend us against the damp."
Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle...
which I drew from a long row of its fellows...
that lay upon the mold.
"Drink," I said, presenting him the wine.
He raised it to his lips with a sneer.
He paused and nodded to me familiarly...
while his bells jingled.
"I drink to the buried that repose around us."
"And I to your long life."
Yes, he again took my arm, and we proceeded.
The wine sparkled in his eyes, and the bells jingled.
My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc.
We had passed through walls of piled bones...
with casks and puncheons intermingling...
into the inmost recesses of the catacombs.
I paused again, and this time made bold...
to seize Fortunato by an arm.
"The mold you see? It increases.
"It hangs like moss upon the vaults.
"We are below the river's bed.
"The drops of moisture trickle among the bones.
"Come, we will go back ere it is too late.
Your cough"
"It is nothing. Let us go on.
Let us proceed to the Amontillado."
"Be it so."
He leaned heavily upon my arm.
We continued our route in search of the Amontillado.
We passed through a range of low arches
descended, passed on.
And descending again, arrived at a deep crypt...
in which the foulness of the air...
caused our torches to glow rather than flame.
At the most remote end of the crypt...
there appeared another room, less spacious.
Its walls had been lined with human remains...
piled to the vault overhead...
in the fashion of the great Catacombs of Paris.
3 sides of this interior crypt...
were still ormented in this manner.
From the fourth, the bones had been thrown down...
and lay in a mound upon the earth.
Within the wall thus exposed...
by the displacing of the bones...
we perceived a still interior recess
in depth about 4 feet, in width 3...
in height 6 or 7
cut into the solid granite.
"Proceed. Herein is the Amontillado.
As for Luchesi"
"He is an ignoramus."
He stepped unsteadily forward...
while I followed immediately at his heels.
In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche...
and finding his progress arrested by the rock...
stood stupidly bewildered.
In the surface of the granite...
there happened to be two iron staples.
From one depended a short chain: From the other a padlock.
It was but the work of a few seconds...
to throw the links about his waist and secure them.
He was too much astounded to resist.
Withdrawing the key, I stepped back from the recess.
"Pass your hand over the wall, Fortunato.
"You cannot help but feel the mold.
"Indeed, it is very damp.
"Once more, let me implore you to return.
"No? Then I must positively leave you...
"but I must first render you...
all the little attentions in my power."
"The Amontillado."
"True. The Amontillado."
As I said these words, I busied myself...
among the pile of bones of which I have spoken.
Throwing them aside...
I soon uncovered a quantity of building stone and mortar.
With these materials and with the aid of a trowel...
I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche.
I scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry...
when I discovered that the intoxication of Fortunato...
had in a great measure worn off.
The earliest indication I had of this was...
a low, moaning cry from the depth of the recess.
It was not the cry of a drunken man.
Then there was a long and obstinate silence.
I laid the second tier and the third and the fourth...
and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain.
The noise lasted for several minutes during which...
that I might hearken to it with the more satisfaction...
I ceased my labors and sat down upon the bones.
When at last the clanking subsided...
I resumed the trowel...
and finished without interruption...
the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh tier.
The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast.
I again paused and, holding the torch over the mason work...
threw a few feeble rays upon the figure within.
A succession of loud and shrill screams...
bursting suddenly from the throat of the chained form...
seemed to thrust me violently back.
For a brief moment I hesitated, I trembled.
Then I placed my hand upon the solid fabric...
of the catacombs and felt satisfied.
I reapproached the wall.
I replied to the yells of him who clamored.
I reechoed, I aided...
I surpassed them in volume and in strength.
I did this, and the clamorer grew still.
It was now midnight...
and my task was drawing to a close.
I had completed the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth tier.
I had finished a portion of the last the 11th.
There remained but a single stone...
to be fitted and plastered in.
I struggled with its weight.
I placed it partially in its destined position.
But now there came from out the niche...
a low laugh that erected the hairs...
upon the back of my neck.
"A very good joke indeed an excellent jest.
"We will have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo...
over our wine."
"The Amontillado?"
"Yes, the Amontillado.
"But is it not getting late?
"Will they not be waiting for us at the palazzo
"the Lady Fortunato and the rest?
Let us be gone."
"Yes, let us be gone."
"For the love of God, Montresor."
"Yes, for the love of God, Fortunato."
But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply.
I grew impatient.
I called aloud, "Fortunato? Fortunato?"
No answer still.
I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture...
and let it fall within.
There came forth in return only a jingling of the bells.
My heart grew sick...
on account of the dampness of the catacombs.
I hastened to make an end of my labor.
I forced the last stone into its position.
I plastered it up.
Against the new masonry...
I erected the old rampart of bones.
For the half of a century, no mortal has disturbed them.
/n pace requ/escat.
I was sick sick unto death with that long agony.
I felt that my senses were leaving me.
The dread sentence of death...
was the last distinct phrase which reached my ears.
After that, the voices of the Inquisition judges...
seemed to merge in one dreamy, indeterminate hum.
I saw the lips of the black robed judges
white and thin even to grotesqueness...
writhing with their deadly locution
fashioning the syllables of my name...
and the decree of death by torture.
And then the blackness loomed close up against my skin...
snuffing out even the evil whiteness...
of those damning lips...
driving all sensibility into retreat...
in a mad rushing descent as of the soul into Hades.
Then silence and stillness and night were the universe.
I had swooned...
yet shadows of memory reflect dimly...
upon the inner walls of my mind
shadows of tall figures...
that lifted and bore me down, down...
to a place of flatness and dampness and silence.
Silence... and all is madness.
I would not open my eyes.
I felt that I lay upon my back unbound.
I reached out my hand...
and it fell heavily upon something damp and hard.
I longed, yet dared not to employ my vision.
It was not that I feared to look upon things horrible...
but that I grew aghast...
lest there should be nothing to see.
At length, with a wild desperation at heart...
I quickly unclosed my eyes.
My worst thoughts were confirmed.
The blackness of eternal night encompassed me.
I struggled for breath.
The intensity of the darkness seemed to oppress and stifle me.
Perspiration burst from every pore...
and stood in big cold beads upon my forehead.
I thrust my arms wildly above and around me
clawing, grasping...
reaching for something either damnable or saving...
but something.
Nothing.
The agony of suspense grew intolerable, so I arose.
Cautiously, I stepped forward...
my eyes straining from their sockets...
in hope of catching some faint ray of light.
But the blackness was still a disguise.
Until finally, a wall
smooth, slimy, cold a wall.
I followed it up...
stepping with all that careful distrust...
inspired by the thousand vague rumors...
of the horrors of Toledo.
Finally I took courage.
I resolved to quit the wall...
and to cross the enclosure...
in as direct a line as possible.
The floor was treacherous with slime.
I advanced cautiously...
some 1o or 12 paces in this manner...
when suddenly I stumbled...
and fell violently on my face.
In the confusion attending my fall...
I did not immediately apprehend...
a somewhat startling circumstance.
It was this:
My chin rested upon the floor of the prison...
but my lips and the upper portion of my head...
touched nothing.
At the same time, my forehead seemed bathed...
in a clammy vapor...
and the peculiar smell of decayed fungus...
arose to my nostrils.
I had fallen at the very brink of a circular pit.
Groping about the masonry just below the margin...
I succeeded in dislodging a small fragment...
and let it fall into the abyss.
Many seconds I waited...
and hearkened to its reverberations...
as it dashed against the sides of the chasm in its descent.
At length there was a sullen plunge into water...
succeeded by loud echoes.
At the same moment, there came a sound...
resembling a quick opening of a door overhead...
while a faint gleam of light...
flashed suddenly through the gloom...
and as suddenly faded away.
Shaking in every limb...
I groped my way back to the wall...
resolving there to perish...
rather than risk the terrors of the pit.
Agitation of spirit kept me awake for many long hours...
but at length I fell into a deep slumber.
Upon arousing, I found that objects around me were visible.
A wild sulfurous luster
by that I was enabled to see...
the extent and aspect of the prison.
What I had taken for masonry...
seemed now to be iron in huge plates.
Figures of hideous fiends in aspects of menace...
with skeleton forms...
overspread and disfigured the walls.
In the center of the floor...
yawned the circular pit from whose jaws I had escaped.
Then I realized...
that I was securely bound to a low framework of wood.
Strapping passed in many convolutions about my body...
leaving at liberty only my head and my left arm...
so that only with much exertion...
could I supply myself with food from an earthen dish...
which lay by my side on the floor.
The food in the dish was meat, pungently seasoned.
Looking upward...
I surveyed the ceiling of my prison.
It was some 3o or 4o feet overhead...
and suspended therefrom was...
what appeared to be a huge pendulum...
such as one might see on antique clocks.
While I gazed at it...
I fancied that I saw it move ever so slightly.
I watched it for some for some minutes...
somewhat in fear, but more in wonder.
Then a noise attracted my notice...
and looking to the floor, I saw several enormous rats.
They had issued from the pit with ravenous eyes...
lured by the scent of the meat.
It required much effort and attention...
to scare them away from the food.
When I again cast my eyes upward...
what I saw confounded and amazed me.
The sweep of the pendulum had increased in extent...
by nearly a yard.
But what mainly disturbed me was the idea...
that it had perceptibly descended.
I now observed
with what horror it is needless to say
that its lower extremity was a crescent of glittering steel...
about a foot in length from horn to horn
the horns upward...
and the under edge evidently as keen as that of a razor.
And it hissed as it swung through the air.
Inch by inch...
with a descent only appreciable at intervals that seemed ages...
down and still down it came.
Days passed ere it swept so closely over me...
as to fan me with its acrid breath.
I prayed for its more speedy descent.
I grew frantically mad...
and struggled to force myself upward...
against the sweep of the fearful scimitar.
And then suddenly I fell calm...
and lay smiling at the glittering death...
as a child would at some rare bauble.
I saw that the crescent was designed to cross...
the region of my heart.
It would fray the serge of my garment.
It would return and repeat its operations...
again and again...
but the fraying of my garment would be all that...
for several minutes, it would accomplish.
To the right, to the left, far and wide...
down, steadily down it crept...
with the shriek of a damned spirit:
To my heart with the stealthy pace of the tiger.
I alternately laughed and howled...
as the odor of the sharp steel forced itself into my nostrils.
Down, relentlessly down...
it vibrated finally within 3 inches of my bosom.
1o or 12 sweeps would bring the steel...
in actual contact with my clothing.
And then, with this observation...
there suddenly came over my spirit...
all the keen, collected calmness of despair.
For the first time in many hours or perhaps days...
I thought I thought of the rats.
They had been literally swarming around...
the low framework upon which I lay.
They were wild, bold, and ravenous...
their red eyes glaring upon me...
as if they waited for motionlessness on my part...
to make me their prey.
"What food," I thought...
"have they been accustomed to in the pit?"
They had devoured...
in spite of all my efforts to prevent them...
all but a small remnant of the contents of the dish.
Although my plan was scarcely sane...
I proceeded at once to attempt its execution.
With the particles of the oily and spicy meat...
which now remained...
I thoroughly rubbed the restraining binding...
wherever I could reach it.
Then I lay breathlessly still.
At first the ravenous animals were startled...
and terrified at the change.
Observing, however, that I remained without motion...
one or two of the boldest leapt upon the framework...
and smelt at my bonds.
This seemed the signal for a general rush.
They leapt in hundreds upon my person.
The measured movement of the pendulum...
disturbed them not at all.
Avoiding its strokes...
they busied themselves gnawing the anointed bindings.
They pressed...
they swarmed upon me in ever accumulating heaps.
They writhed upon my throat. Their cold lips sought my own.
I was half stifled by their thronging pressure.
Disgust for which the world has no name swelled my bosom...
and chilled with a heavy clamminess my heart.
Yet one minute, and I felt that the struggle would be over.
Plainly I perceived the loosening of the strapping.
I knew that in more than one place...
it must be already severed.
With a more than human resolution...
I lay still.
Nor had I erred in my calculations...
nor had I endured in vain.
I at last felt that I was free.
But the stroke of the pendulum already pressed upon my bosom.
It had divided the serge of my garment.
Twice again it swung...
and a sharp sense of pain shot through every nerve...
but the moment of escape had arrived.
At a wave of my hand...
my deliverers hurried tumultuously away.
With a steady movement...
I slid from the embrace of the bindings...
and beyond the reach of the scimitar.
I was free free.
But still in the grasp of the Inquisition.
I had scarcely stepped from my wooden bed of horror...
when the motion of the hellish machine ceased...
and I beheld it drawn up.
My very motion was undoubtedly watched.
Free.
I had but escaped death in one form of agony...
to be delivered unto worse than death in some other.
With that thought, I rolled my eyes nervously...
on the barriers of iron that hemmed me in.
I observed that the figures of the fiends upon the walls...
had now assumed a startling and most intense brilliancy.
Demon eyes of a wild and ghastly vivacity...
glared upon me from a thousand directions.
It was unreal.
While I breathed, there came to my nostrils...
the breath of the vapor of heated iron.
A suffocating odor pervaded the prison.
I panted, I gasped for breath.
I shrank from the burning metal to the center of the cell.
Amid the thought of the fiery destruction that impended...
the idea of the coolness of the pit...
came over my soul like balm.
I rushed to its deadly brink.
I threw my straining eyes below.
The glare from the enkindled roof...
illuminated its inmost recesses.
Yet, for a wild moment, did my spirit refuse...
to comprehend the meaning of what I saw.
At length it forced, it burned its way into my soul.
Oh, for a voice to speak.
Oh, horror. Oh, any horror but this.
The heat increased rapidly, and once again I looked up.
There had been a second change in the cell...
and now the change was obviously in the form.
The room had been square.
The fearful difference quickly increased...
with a low, rumbling sound.
The apartment was shifting its form...
into that of a rectangle.
"Death," I screamed...
"Any death but that of the pit."
Fool.
Might I not have known that into the pit...
was the object of the burning iron to urge me?
And now closer and closer grew the walls.
I shrank back...
but the closing walls pressed me resistlessly onward.
At length, for my seared and writhing body...
there was no longer an inch of foothold...
on the firm floor of the prison.
I struggled no more...
but the agony of my soul found vent...
in one long, loud, and final scream of despair.
I felt that I tottered upon the brink.
Then suddenly...
there was a discordant hum of human voices.
There was a loud blast as of many trumpets.
The fiery walls rushed back.
An outstretched arm caught my own...
as I fell fainting into the abyss.
It was that of General LaSalle.
The French army had entered Toledo.
The Inquisition is in the hands of its enemies.