The Pit and the Pendulum

by Edgar Allan Poe

Impia tortorum longas 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 in 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 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
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
superened; all sensations appeared swallowed up in a mad rushing descent
as of the soul into Hades. Then silence, and stillness, and 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 was 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 afterwards (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 endeavours 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 endeavour 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 endeavour 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 auto-da-fes, 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 rumours 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 afterwards 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--endeavouring 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 vapour, 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 than the mere dimensions of my
dungeon? But my soul took a wild interest in trifles, and I busied myself in
endeavours 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 colours
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 it 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 cognisance 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 rumour as the Ultima Thule
of all their punishments. The plunge into this pit I had avoided by the merest of
accidents, and 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 oscillations 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 odour 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 I 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 vigour 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 very 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, O, 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 razor-like 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 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 annointed 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 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 tumultously 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 eyes 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 endeavoured, 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 colours seemed
blurred and indefinite. These colours had now assumed, and were
momentarily assuming, a startling and most intense brilliancy, that give 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. O 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 if 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 not have 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.