** Edgar Allan Poe **
(1842)
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 he 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 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 in cast my 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 terrifically wide sweep (some thirty feet or
more) and the its 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, in 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.