The Pit and the Pendulum
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"The Pit and the Pendulum" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe and first published in 1842. The story is about the torments endured by a prisoner of the Spanish Inquisition, though Poe's skews historical facts. The story is especially effective at inspiring fear in the reader because of its heavy focus on the senses, such as sound, emphasizing its reality, unlike many of Poe's stories which are aided by the supernatural. The traditional elements established in popular horror tales at the time are followed but critical reception has been mixed.
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THE PIT AND THE PENDULUM
Impia tortorum longos hic turba furores
Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro,
Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent.
[_Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to be erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris_.]
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 accentuation which reached my
ears. After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed
merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum. It conveyed to my soul
the idea of _revolution_—perhaps from its association in 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-robed
judges. They appeared to me white—whiter than the sheet upon
which I trace these words—and thin even to grotesqueness; thin
with the intensity of their expression of firmness—of immoveable
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 fibre in my
frame thrill as if I had touched the wire of a galvanic battery,
while the angel forms became meaningless spectres, 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. 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 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 epoch assures 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 the 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 revival 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 to 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 a 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 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 autos-da-fe, 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 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 fibre. 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, afforded me no means of
ascertaining the dimensions of my dungeon; as I might make its
circuit, and return 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, when 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 fragment at 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 afterward, I resumed my tour around the prison, and with
much toil came at last upon the fragment of the serge. Up to the
period when I 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 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 still 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 the chin, 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 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 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 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 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 had 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 draught. 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
sulphurous lustre, 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 had 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, then the mere dimensions of my dungeon? But
my soul took a wild interest in trifles, and I busied myself in
endeavors 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 serge; 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 lethargy 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 in 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 centre 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 pitcher 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
commonly 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 just 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 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. 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 disturbed me was the idea that had 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 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 pit_, whose horrors had been
destined for so bold a recusant as myself—the pit, typical of
hell, and regarded by rumor as the Ultima Thule 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 deaths. Having failed to fall, it was no part of the
demon plan to hurl 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 a 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 again lapsing 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—to regain it. Long suffering had nearly annihilated all
my ordinary powers of mind. 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 serge of my robe—it would return and
repeat its operations—again—and again. Notwithstanding its
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
arrest 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 latter, 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 convulsively 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 calmness 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 portion 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 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,
when 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 a moiety 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 see-saw, or wave of the hand about the platter;
and, at length, the unconscious uniformity of the movement
deprived it of effect. In their voracity 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 voracity. Observing that I remained
without motion, one or two of the boldest leaped upon the
frame-work, and smelt at the surcingle. This seemed the 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 a 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 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 length felt that I was free. The surcingle hung in ribands
from my body. But the stroke of the pendulum already pressed upon
my bosom. It had divided the serge 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 a 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 it
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 sulphurous 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 the lurid
lustre 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 vapour of heated iron! A suffocating odour pervaded
the prison! A deeper glow settled each moment in the eyes that
glared at my agonies! A richer tint of crimson diffused 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 demoniac of men! I
shrank from the glowing metal to the centre 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 shuddering reason. 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 a fit of the ague. 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, endeavoured 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, consequently, 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 centre, and
of course, its greatest width, came just 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 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 Lasalle. The French army had entered Toledo. The
Inquisition was in the hands of its enemies.
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