The Pit and the Pendulum by Edgar Allanpoe. I was sick, sick unto
death with that long agony. And when they at length unbound me and I
was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The
sentence, the dread sentence of death, was the last of distinct acsenuation which
reached my ears. After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merge
in one dreamy, indeterminate tom It conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution,
perhaps from its association and fancy with the burr of a mill wheel.
This only for a brief period, for presently I heard no more. Yet
for a while I saw, but with how terrible an exaggeration, I saw
the lips of the black Rube judges. They appeared to me white, whiter
than the sheet upon which I traced these words, and thin even to grotesqueness.
Thin with the intensity of their expression of firmness, of immovable resolution,
of stern contempt of human torture. I saw that the decrees of what to
me was fate were still issuing from those lips. I saw them, writhe
with a deadly locution, I saw them fashion the syllables of my name,
and I shuddered, because no sound succeeded. I saw, too, for
a few moments of delirious horror, the soft and nearly imperceptible waving of the
sable draperies, which unwrapped the walls of the apartment. And then my vision
fell upon the seven tall candles upon the table. At first they wore the
aspect of charity, and seemed white and slender angels who would save me.
But then all at once there came a most deadly nausea over my spirit,
and I felt every fiber in my frame thrill, as if I had touched
the wire of a galvanic battery. While the angel forms became meaningless specters with
heads of flame, and I saw that from them there would be no help.
And then there stole into my fancy, like a rich musical note,
the thought of what sweet rest there must be in the grave. The thought
came gently and stealthily, and it seemed along before it attained full appreciation.
But just as my spirit came at length properly to feel and entertain it,
the figures of the judges vanished, as if magically from before me. The
tall candles sank into nothingness. Their flames went out utterly, the blackness of
darkness supervened. All sensations appeared swallowed up, and a man rushing descent as
of the soul into hades. Then silence and stillness night were the universe.
I had swooned, But still will not say that all of consciousness was lost.
What of it there remained, I will not attempt to define or even
to describe. Yet all was not lost in the deepest slumber. No in
delirium, no in a swoon, No in death, no even in the
grave. All is not lost. Else there is no immortality for man.
Arousing from the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some
dream. Yet in a second afterward, so frail may that web have been,
we remember not that we have dreamed. In the return to life from
the swoon, there are two stages, first that of the sense of mental
or spiritual, secondly that of the sense of physical existence. It seems probable
that, if upon reaching the second stage, we could recall the impressions of
the first, we should find these impressions eloquent in memories of the gulf beyond
and that gulf is what, how at least shall we distinguish its shadows from
those of the tomb. But if the impressions of what I've termed the first
stage are not at will recalled, yet after long interval, do they not
come unbidden while we marvel? Whence they come? He who has never swooned?
Is not he who finds strange palaces and wildly familiar faces in coals that
glow. Is not he who beholds, floating in mid air the sad visions
that the many may not view. Is not he who ponders over the perfume
of some novel flower. Is not he whose brain grows bewildered with the meaning
of some musical cadence which has never before arrested his attention. Amid frequent and
thoughtful endeavors to remember, amid earnest struggles to regather some token of the state
of seeming nothingness into which my soul had lapsed, there have been moments when
I have dreamed of success. There have been brief, very brief periods when
I have conjured up remembrances which the lucid reason of a later epoch sures me
could have had reference only to that condition of seeming unconsciousness. These shadows of
memory tell indistinctly of tall figures that lifted and bore me in silence, down,
down, still, down, till a hideous dizziness oppressed me at the
mere idea of the interminableness of the descent. They tell also of a vague
horror at my heart on account of that heart's unnatural stillness. Then comes a
sense of sudden motionlessness throughout all things, as if those who bore me a
ghastly train had outrun in their descent the limits of the limitless, and paused
from the wearisomeness of their toil. After this I called to mind flatness and
dampness. And then all is madness, the madness of a memory which busies
itself among forbidden things. Very suddenly there came back to my soul motion and
sound, the tumultuous motion of my heart, and in my ears the sound
of its beating. Then a pause in which all is blank. Then again
sound and motion, and touch, a tingling sensation pervading my frame. Then
the mere consciousness of existence without thought, a condition which lasted long. Then
very suddenly thought and shuddering terror, and earnest endeavor to comprehend my true state.
Then a strong desire to lapse into insensibility, then a rushing reverival of
soul and a successful effort to move, And now a full memory of the
trial of the judges, of the sable draperies, of the sentence, of
the sickness of the swoon, then entire forgetfulness of all that followed, of
all that a later day and much earnestness of endeavor have enabled me vaguely to
recall. So far I had not opened 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. There I suffered it to remain for many minutes,
while I strove to imagine where and what I could be. I longed,
yet dared not employ my vision. I dreaded the first glance at objects
around me. 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 the wild desperation at heart, I quickly unclosed my eyes. My worst
thoughts then were confirmed. The blackness of eternal night encompassed me. I struggled
for breath. The intensity of the darkness seemed to oppress and stifle me.
The atmosphere was intolerably close. I still lay quietly and made effort to exercise
my reason. I brought to mind the inquisitorial proceedings, and attempted from that
point to deduce my real condition. The sentence had passed, and it appeared
to me that a very long interval of time had since elapsed. Yet not
for a moment that I suppose myself actually dead. Such a supposition, notwithstanding
what we read in fiction, is altogether inconsistent with real existence. But where
and in what state was I? The condemned to death I knew perished usually
at the otto's de fay, and one of these had been held on the
very night of the day of my trial. Had I been remanded to my
dungeon to await the next sacrifice, which would not take place for many months,
This I at once saw could not be. Victims had been in immediate
demand. Moreover, my dungeon, as well as all the condemned cells at
Toledo, had stone floors, and the light was not altogether excluded. A
fearful idea now suddenly drove the blood in torrents upon my heart, and for
a brief period I once more relapsed insensibility. Upon recovering, I at once
started to my feet, trembling convulsively in every fiber. I thrust my arms
wildly above and around me in all directions. I felt nothing, yet dreaded
to move a step lest I should be impeded by the walls of a tomb.
Perspiration burst from every pore and stood in cold, big beads upon my
forehead. The agony of suspense grew at length intolerable, and I cautiously moved
forward, with my arms extended and my eyes straining from their sockets, in
the hope of catching some faint ray of light. I proceeded for many paces,
but still all was blackness and vacancy. I breathed more freely. It
seemed evident that mine was not at least the most hideous of fates. And
now, as I still continued to step cautiously onward, there came thronging upon
my recollection a thousand vague rumors of the horrors of Toledo, of the dungeons.
There had been strange things, narrated fables. I had always deemed them,
but yet strange and too ghastly to repeat save in a whisper. Was
I left to perish of starvation in this subterranean world of darkness? Or what
fate, perhaps even more fearful, awaited me? That the result would be
death, and a death of more than customary bitterness. I knew too well
the character of my judges to doubt. The mode and the hour were all
that occupied or distracted me. My outstretched hands at length encountered some solid obstruction.
It was a wall, seemingly of stone masonry, very smooth, slimy,
and cold. I followed it up, stepping with all the careful distrust
with which certain antique narratives had inspired me. This process, however, afford
me no means of ascertaining the dimensions of my dungeon, as I might make
its circuit, and returned to the point whence I set out, without being
aware of the fact, so perfectly uniformed seemed the wall. I therefore sought
the knife which had been in my pocket, which led into the inquisitorial chamber,
but it was gone. My clothes had been exchanged for a wrapper of
coarse serge. I had thought of forcing the blade in some minute crevice of
the masonry, so as to identify my point of departure. The difficulty,
nevertheless, was but trivial, although in the disorder of my fancy it seemed
at first insuperable. I tore a part of the hem from the robe and
placed the fragmented full length and at right angles to the wall. In groping
my way around the prison, I could not fail to encounter this rag upon
completing the circuit, so at least, I thought. But I had not
counted upon the extent of the dungeon, or upon my own weakness. The
ground was moist and slippery. I staggered onward for some time. When I
stumbled and fell. My excessive fatigue induced me to remain prostrate, and sleep
soon overtook me. As I lay upon a waking and stretching forth an arm
I found beside me a loaf and a pitcher with water. I was too
much exhausted to reflect upon this circumstance, but ate and drank with avidity.
Shortly afterward, I resumed my tour around the prison, and with much toil,
came at last upon the fragment of the search up to the period when
I had fell, I had counted fifty two paces, and upon resuming my
walk, I had counted forty eight more. When I arrived at the rag
there were in all then a hundred paces, and admitting two paces to the
yard, I presumed the dungeon to be fifty yards in circuit. I had
met, however, with many angles in the wall, and thus I could
form no guess at the shape of the vault. For vault, I could
not help supposing it to be. I had little object, certainly no hope
in these researches, but a vague curiosity prompted me to continue them. Quitting
the wall, I resolved to cross the area of the enclosure. At first,
I proceeded with extreme caution, for the floor, although seemingly of solid
material, was treacherous with slime. At length, however, I took courage
and did not hesitate a step, firmly endeavoring to cross in as direct a
line as possible. I had advanced some ten or twelve paces in this manner
when the remnant of the torn hem of my robe became entangled between my legs.
I stepped on it and fell violently on my face. In the confusion,
attending my fall, I did not immediately apprehend a somewhat startling circumstance,
which, yet, in a few seconds afterward, and while I lay prostrate,
arrested my attention. It was this My chin rested upon the floor of
the prison, but my lips and the upproportion of my head, although seemingly
at a less elevation than my chin, touched nothing. At the same time,
my forehead seen bathed in a clammy vapor, and the peculiar smell of
de cad fungus arose to my nostrils. I put forward my arm and shuddered
to find that I had fallen at the very brink of a circular pit,
whose extent, of course, I had no means of ascertaining at the moment.
Groping about the masonry chest below the margin, I succeeded in dislodging a
small fragment and let it fall into the abyss. For many seconds, I
hearkened to its reverberations as it dashed against the size 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 the quick
opening and as rapid closing of a door overhead, while a faint gleam of
light flashed suddenly through the gloom, and as suddenly faded away. I saw
clearly the doom which had been prepared for me, and congratulated myself upon the
timely accident by which I had escaped another step before my fall, and the
world had seen me no more, And the death just avoided was of that
very character which I had regarded as fabulous and frivolous in the tales respecting the
Inquisition. To the victims of its tyranny. There was the choice of death
with its direst physical agonies, or death with its most hideous to moral horrors.
I had been reserved for the latter. By long suffering. My nerves
had been unstrung until I trembled at the sound of my own voice, and
had become in every respect a fitting subject for the species of torture which awaited
me. Shaking in every limb, I groped my way back to the wall,
resolving there to perish rather than risk the terrors of the wells of which
my imagination now pictured many in various positions about the dungeon. In other conditions
of mind, I might have had courage to end my misery at once by
a plunge into one of these abysses. But now I was the veriest of
cowards. Neither could I forget what I have read of these pits, that
the sudden extinction of life formed no part of their most horrible plan. Agitation
of spirit kept me awake for many long hours, but at length I again
slumbered. Upon arousing, I found by my side, as before, a
loaf and a pitcher of water. A burning thirst consumed me, and I
emptied the vessel at a drought. It must have been drugged, for scarcely
had I drunk. Before I became irresistibly drowsy. A deep sleep fell upon
me, a sleep like that of death. How long it lasted, of
course, I know not. But when once again I unclosed my eyes,
the objects around me were visible by a wild, sulfurous luster, the origin
of which I could not at first determine. I was enabled to see the
extent and aspect of the prison. In its size, I have been greatly
mistaken. The whole circuit of its walls did not exceed twenty five yards for
some minutes. This fact occasioned me a world of vain trouble. Vain indeed,
for what could be of less importance under the terrible circumstances which environed me
than the mere dimensions of my dungeon. But my soul took a wild interest
in trifles, and I busied myself and endeavored to account for the error I
had committed in my measurement. The truth at length flashed upon me. In
my first attempt at exploration, I had counted fifty two paces up to the
period when I fell. I must then have been within a pace or two
of the fragment of search. In fact, I had nearly performed the circuit
of the vault. I then slept, and upon awaking I must have returned
upon my steps, thus supposing the circuit nearly double what it actually was.
My confusion of mind prevented me from observing that I began my tour with the
wall to the left and ended it with the wall to the right. I
had been deceived too in respect to the shape of the enclosure. In feeling
my way, I had found many angles, and thus deduced an idea of
great irregularity. So potent is the effect of total darkness upon one arousing from
authardy or sleep. The angles were simply those of a few slight depressions or
niches at odd intervals. The general shape of the prison was square. What
I had taken for masonry seemed now to be iron or some other metal,
in huge plates whose sutures or joints occasioned the depression. The entire surface of
this metallic enclosure was rudely daubed in all the hideous and repulsive devices to which
the Charnel superstition of the monks has given rise. The figures of fiends and
aspects of menace, with skeleton forms and other more really fearful images overspread and
disfigured the walls. I observed that the outlines of these monstrosities were sufficiently distinct,
but that the colors seemed faded and blurred, as if from the effects
of a damp atmosphere. I now noticed the floor, too, which was
of stone. In the center yawned the circular pit from whose jaws I had
escaped, but it was the only one in the dungeon. All this I
saw indistinctly, and by much effort, for my personal condition had been greatly
changed during slumber. I now lay upon my back and at full length on
a species of low framework of wood. To this I was securely bound by
a long strap resembling a surcingle. It passed in many convolutions about my limbs
and body, leaving at liberty only my head and my left arm, to
such extent that I could, by dint of much exertion, supply myself with
food from an earthen dish, which lay by my side on the floor.
I saw to my horror that the picture had been removed, I say to
my horror, for I was consumed with intolerable thirst. This thirst, it
appeared to be the design of my persecutors to stimulate. For the food in
the dish was meat pungently seasoned. Looking upward, I surveyed the ceiling of
my prison. It was some thirty or forty feet overhead, and constructed much
as the side walls. In one of its panels, a very singular figure
riveted my whole attention. It was the painted figure of Time, as he
is common represented, save that in lieu of a scythe he held what,
at a casual glance I supposed to be the pictured image of a huge pendulum,
such as we see on antique clocks. There was something, however,
in the appearance of this machine, which caused me to regard it more attentively.
While I gazed directly upward at it, for its position was immediately over
my own, I fancied that I saw it in motion in an instant afterward,
the fancy was confirmed. Its sweep was brief and of course slow.
I watched it for some minutes, somewhat in fear, but more in wonder.
Wearied at length with observing its dull movement, I turned my eyes upon
the other objects in the cell. A slight noise attracted my notice, and
looking to the floor, I saw several enormous rats traversing it. They had
issued from the well, which lay chest within view to my right. Even
then, while I gazed, they came up in troops, hurriedly, with
ravenous eyes, alert by the scent of the meat. From this it required
much effort and attention to scare them away. It might have been half an
hour, perhaps even an hour, for I could take but imperfect note of
time before I again cast my eyes upward, where I then saw confounded and
amazed me. The sweep of the pendulum had increased in extent by nearly a
yard. As a natural consequence, its velocity was also much greater. But
what mainly this sturved me was the idea that had been perceptive descended. I
now observed with what horror. It is needless to say that its nether extremity
was formed of 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. Like a razor, also it seems massy and
heavy, tapering from the edge into a solid and broad structure. Above it
was appended to a weighty rod of brass, and the whole hissed as it
swung through the air. I could no longer doubt the doom prepared for me
by Monkish ingenuity in torture. My cognizance of the pit had become known to
the inquisitorial agents, the pits whose horrors had been destined for so bold a
reconaissant as myself, the pit typical of hell, and regarded by rumor as
the ultimate ful of all their punishments. The plunge into this pit I had
avoided by the merest of accidents. I knew that surprise or entrapment into torment
formed an important portion of all the grotesquerie of these dungeon debts. Having failed
to fall, it was no part of the demon plant to hurrow me into
the abyss, and thus there being no alternative, a different and a milder
destruction awaited me mild her. I half smiled in my agony as I thought
of such application of such a term. What boots it to tell of the
long, long hours of horror more than mortal, during which I counted the
rushing vibrations of the steel inch by inch by line, with the descent only
appreciable at intervals that seemed ages down and still down. It came, days
passed. It might have been that many days passed. Ere it swept so
closely over me as to fan me with its acrid breath. The odor of
the sharp steel forced itself into my nostrils. I prayed, I wearied Heaven
with my prayer for its more speedy descent. I grew frantically mad, and
struggled to force myself upward against the sweep of the fearful scimitar, and then
I fell suddenly calm, and lay smiling at the glittering death as a child
at some rare bauble. There was another interval of utter insensibility. It was
brief, for upon against lap sing into life, there had been no perceptible
descent in the pendulum. But it might have been long, for I knew
there were demons who took a note of my swoon, and who could have
arrested the vibration at pleasure. Upon my recovery, too, I felt very,
oh inexpressibly sick and weak, as if through long and amnition. Even
amid the agonies of that period, the human nature craved food with painful effort.
I outstretched my left arm as far as my bonds permitted, and took
possession of the small remnant which had been spared me by the rats. As
I put a portion of it within my lips, there rushed to my mind
a half formed thought of joy, of hope. Yet what business had I
with hope? It was, as I say, a half formed thought.
Man has many such which are never completed. I felt that it was of
joy of hope, but felt also that it had perished in its formation in
vain. I struggled to perfect it, to regain it. Long suffering had
nearly annihilated all my ordinary powers of mine. I was an imbecile, an
idiot. The vibration of the pendulum was at right angles to my length.
I saw that the crescent was designed to cross the region of the heart.
It would fray the surgue of my robe. It would return and repeat its
operations again and again. Notwithstanding terrifically wide sweep some thirty feet or more,
and the hissing vigor of its descent sufficient to sunder these very walls of iron.
Still, the fraying of my robe would be all that, for several
minutes it would accomplish. And at this thought I paused. I dared not
go farther than this reflection. I dwelt upon it with a pertinacity of attention,
as if in so dwelling I could rest here the descent of the steel.
I forced myself to ponder upon the sound of the crescent as it should
pass across the garment, Upon the peculiar thrilling sensation which the friction of cloth
produces on the nerves. I pondered upon all this frivolity until my teeth were
on edge. Down steadily, down it crept. I took a frenzied pleasure
in contrasting its downward with its lateral velocity to the right, to the left,
far and wide, with the shriek of a damned spirit to my heart,
with the stealthy pace of the tiger. I alternately laughed and howled as
the one or the other idea grew predominant, down, certainly, relentlessly down
it vibrated within three inches of my bosom. I struggled violently, furiously to
free my left arm. This was free only from the elbow to the hand.
I could reach the ladder from the platter beside me to my mouth with
great effort. But no farther could I have broken the fastenings above the elbow.
I would have seized and attempted to arrest the pendulum. I might as
well have attempted to arrest an avalanche. Down still, unceasingly, still,
inevitably down, I gasped and struggled at each vibration. I shrunk coulsively at
its every sweep. My eyes followed its outward or upward whirls with the eagerness
of the most unmeaning despair. They closed themselves spasmodically at the descent. Although
death would have been a relief, oh how unspeakable. Still I quivered in
every nerve to think how slight a sinking of the machinery would precipitate that keen
glistening axe upon my bosom. It was hope that prompted the nerve to quiver,
the frame to shrink. It was hope, the hope that triumphs on
the rack, that whispers to the death condemned. Even in the dungeons of
the inquisition, I saw that some ten or twelve vibrations would bring the steel
in actual contact with my robe. And with this observation there suddenly came over
my spirit all the keen collected calm of despair. For the first time during
many hours or perhaps days, I thought, it now occurred to me that
the bandage, or so single which enveloped me was unique. I was tied
by no separate chord. The first stroke of the razorlike crescent athwart any position
of the band would so detach it that it might be unwound from my person
by means of my left hand. But how fearful. In that case,
the proximity of the steel the result of the slightest struggle, how deadly was
it likely? Moreover, that the minions of the torturer had not foreseen and
provided for this possibility? Was it probable that the bandage crossed my bosom in
the track of the pendulum. Dreading to find my faint and, as it
seemed my last hope. Frustrated, I so far elevated my head as to
obtain a distinct view of my breast. The circingle enveloped my limbs and body
close in all directions save in the path of the destroying crescent. Scarcely had
I dropped my head back into its original position, where there flashed upon my
mind what I cannot better describe than as the unformed half of that idea of
deliverance to which I have previously alluded, and of which amiety only floated indeterminately
through my brain. When I raised food to my burning lips. The whole
thought was now present, feeble, scarcely saying, scarcely definite, but still
entire, I proceeded at once, with the nervous energy of despair, to
attempt its execution. For many hours, the immediate vicinity of the low framework
upon which I lay had been literally swarming with rats. They were wild,
bold, ravenous, their red eyes glaring upon me as if they waited but
for motionlessness on my part, to make me their prey to what food?
I thought have they been accustomed in the well they had devoured in spite of
all my efforts to prevent them, all but a small remnant of the contents
of the dish. I had fallen into an habitual sea saw or wave of
the hand about the platter, and at length the unconscious uniformity of the movement
deprived it of effect. In their veracity, the vermin frequently fastened their sharp
fangs in my fingers. With the particles of the oily and spicy viand which
now remained, I thoroughly rubbed the bandage wherever I could reach it. Then,
raising my hand from the floor, I lay breathlessly still. At first,
the ravenous animals were startled and terrified at the change. At the cessation
of movement, they shrank alarmedly back. Many sought the well. But this
was only for a moment. I had not counted in vain upon their veracity,
observing that I remained without motion. One or two of the boldest leaped
upon the framework and smelt at the cercingle. This seemed to signal for a
general rush forth from the well. They hurried in fresh troops. They clung
to the wood, they overran it, and leaped in hundreds upon my person.
The measured movement of the pendulum disturbed them, not at all, avoiding
its strokes, they busied themselves with the anointed bandage. 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
the heavy clamminess my heart. Yet one minute and I felt that the struggle
would be over. Plainly I perceived the loosening of the bandage. I knew
that in more than one place it must already be 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 length felt that I was free.
The circingle hung in ribbons from my body. But the stroke of the
pendulum already pressed upon my bosom. It had divided the surge of the robe,
it had cut through the linen beneath 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 the steady movement, cautious, sidelong, shrinking and slow, I slid
from the embrace of the bandage and beyond the reach of the scimitar. For
the moment at least I was free. Free, and in the grasp of
the inquisition. I had scarcely stepped from my wooden bed of horror upon the
stone floor of the prison. When the motion of the hellish machine ceased,
and I beheld the drawn up by some invisible force through the ceiling. This
was a lesson which I took desperately to heart. My every 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 eves nervously around on the barriers of iron that hemmed me in
something unusual, some change which at first I could not appreciate distinctly, it
was obvious had taken place in the apartment. For many minutes of a dreamy
and trembling abstraction, I busied myself in vain unconnected conjecture. During this period
I became aware for the first time of the origin of the sulfurous light which
illumined the cell. It proceeded from a fissure about half an inch in width
extending entirely around the prison at the base of the walls, which thus appeared
and were completely separated from the floor. I endeavored, but of course in
vain, to look through the aperture. As I arose from the attempt,
the mystery of the alteration in the chamber broke at once upon my understanding.
I have observed that although the outlines of the figures upon the walls were sufficiently
distinct, yet the colors seemed blurred and indefinite. These colors had now assumed
and were momentarily assuming a startling and most intense brilliancy that gave to the spectral
and fiendish portraitures, an aspect that might have thrilled even firmer nerves than my
own demonize of a wild and ghastly vivacity glared upon me in a thousand directions
where none had been visible before, and gleamed with a lurid luster of a
fire that I could not force my imagination to regard as unreal, unreal.
Even while I breathed, there came to my nostrils the breadth of the vapor
of heated iron. A suffocating odor pervaded the prison. A deeper glow settled
each moment in the eyes that glared at my agonies. A richer tint of
crimson diffuse itself over the pictured hars of blood. I panted, I gasped
for breath. There could be no doubt of the design of my tormentors,
Oh most unrelenting, oh most demoniac of men. I shrank from the glowing
metal to the center of the cell. Amid the thought of the fiery destruction
that impended the idea of the coolness of the well came over my soul like
balm. I rushed to its deadly brink. I threw my straining vision below.
The glare from the enkindled roof illumined 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 wrestled its way into my soul. It
burned itself in upon my shudderings. Oh for a voice to speak, Oh
horror, Oh, any horror. But this with a shriek, I rushed
from the margin and buried my face in my hands, weeping bitterly. The
heat rapidly increased, and once again I looked up, shuddering. As with
the fit of the AGUEU. There had been a second change in the cell,
and now the change was obviously in the form as before. It was
in vain that I at first endeavored to appreciate or understand what was taking place.
But not long was I left in doubt. The inquisitorial vengeance had been
hurried by my two fold escape, and there was to be no more dallying
with the King of terrors. The room had been square. I saw that
two of its iron angles were now acute, two consequ quently obtuse. The
fearful difference quickly increased with a low rumbling or moaning sound. In an instant
the apartment had shifted its form into that of a lossenge. But the alteration
stopped, not here I neither hoped nor desired it to stop. I could
have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal piece death,
I said, any death, but that of the pit. Fool might
I have not known that into the pit it was the object of the burning
iron to urge me. Could I resist its glow? Or if even that,
could I withstand its pressure? And now flatter and flatter grew the lozenge
with the rapidity that left me no time for contemplation. Its center, and
of course its greatest width, came chest over the yawning gulf. 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 loud, long and final scream of despair. I
felt that I tottered upon the brink. I averted my eyes. There was
a discordant hum of human voices. There was a loud blast as of many
trumpets. There was a harsh grating as of a thousand thunders. The fiery
walls rushed back. An outstretched arm caught my own as I fell, fainting
into the abyss. It was that of General Lassalle. The French army had
entered Toledo. The Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies, and of
the pit and the pendulum.