Speaker 1: 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
axcenuation which reached my ears. After that, the sound of
the inquisitorial voices seemed merge in one dreamy, indeterminate hum.
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 robe 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 enwrapped 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 long
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
in a mad, 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.
Who if 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 have 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 epochsures 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 call 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,
an earnest endeavor to comprehend my true state. Then a
strong desire to lapse into insensibility, then a rushing reverval
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 than 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 did 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 auto'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 into 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 in 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, afforded 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 uniform 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 surge. 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 apart 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 awaking 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 afterwards I resumed my tour round 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 and 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 vaults,
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 to 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
upper portion of my head, although seemingly at a less
elevation than my chin, touched nothing. At the same time,
my fore had seen bathed in a clammy vapor, and
the peculiar smell of the cayed 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 just 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 side 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 it 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
in 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 a fardier 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 disfigure 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, allured by
the scent of the meet. 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. What 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 served
me was the idea that had been perceptibly 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
seemed 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 hole 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 recuissant as myself, the pit typical of hell, and
regarded by rumor as the ultimate fuel 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 grotesquery of
these dungeon deaths. Having failed to fall, it was no
part of the demon plan to hurrow me into the abyss,
and thus there being no alternative, a different and a
milder destruction awaited me. Milder. 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, line 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 past. Ere it sweat 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
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 inanition.
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
serg 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 them 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 con vulsively 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 precipate 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 calmess of despair. For the first time during
many hours or perhaps days, I thought it now occurred
to me that the bandage or surcingle which enveloped me
was unique. I was tied by no separate cord. 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 feint, and, as it
seemed my last hope. Frustrated, I so far elevated my
head as to obtain a distinct view of my breast.
The surcingle 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
amiody only floated indeterminately through my brain when I raised
food to my burning lips. The whole thought was now present, feeble,
scarcely sane, 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 boldness, leaped upon the framework
and smelt at the surcingle. 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 surcingle
hung in ribbons from my body, but the stroke of
the pendulum already pressed upon my bosom. It had divided
the serve to 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 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 eaves 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. Demon eyes 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 breath 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 horrors of blood. I panted, I gasped
for breath. There could be no doubt of the design
of my tormentors, Oh, most unrelenting, Oh most ammoniac 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, and upon my shuddering,
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 aigu, 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 kansek quenty 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 lozenge.
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 peace. 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 a rapidity that left me no time
for contemplation. Its center, and of course its greatest width,
came chest over the yawning gulf. 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 loud, long and final scream of despair.
I felt that I tottered upon the brink. I averted
my eyes. There was a discorned 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.