Pit and Pendulum

For many minutes of a dreamy and trembling abstraction I busied myself in vain, unconnected conjecture.

Groping about the masonry just below the margin, I succeeded in dislodging a small fragment, and let it fall into the abyss.

They pressed, they swarmed upon me in ever accumulating heaps.

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.

I saw that two of its iron angles were now acute -- two consequently, obtuse.

It was not that I feared to look upon things horrible, but that I grew aghast lest there should be NOTHING to see.

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.

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.

Even then while I gazed, they came up in troops hurriedly, with ravenous eyes, allured by the scent of the meat.

As I arose from the attempt, the mystery of the alteration in the chamber broke at once upon my understanding.

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.

Long suffering had nearly annihilated all my ordinary powers of mind.

I endeavoured, but of course in vain, to look through the aperture.

It was appended to a weighty rod of brass, and the whole HISSED as it swung through the air.

Inch by inch -- line by line -- with a descent only appreciable at intervals that seemed ages -- down and still down it came!

Something unusual -- some change which at first I could not appreciate distinctly -- it was obvious had taken place in the apartment.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I might as well have attempted to arrest an avalanche!

I felt that I tottered upon the brink -- I averted my eyes --
There was a discordant hum of human voices!

Amid the thought of the fiery destruction that impended, the idea of the coolness of the well came over my soul like balm.

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.

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.

At first the ravenous animals were startled and terrified at the change -- at the cessation of movement .

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.

For many minutes of a dreamy and trembling abstraction I busied myself in vain, unconnected conjecture.

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.

It conveyed to my soul the idea of REVOLUTION, perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill-wheel.

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.

I had been deceived too in respect to the shape of the enclosure.

I brought to mind the inquisitorial proceedings, and attempted from that point to deduce my real condition.

In delirium -- no!

There could be no doubt of the design of my tormentors -- oh most unrelenting! oh, most demoniac of men!

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.

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.

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 felt that I tottered upon the brink -- I averted my eyes --
There was a discordant hum of human voices!

The sentence, the dread sentence of death, was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears.

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.

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 sentence had passed, and it appeared to me that a very long interval of time had since elapsed.

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.

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.

The blackness of eternal night encompassed me.

My outstretched hands at length encountered some solid obstruction.

A slight noise attracted my notice, and looking to the floor, I saw several enormous rats traversing it.

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.

It seemed evident that mine was not, at least, the most hideous of fates.

My excessive fatigue induced me to remain prostrate, and sleep soon overtook me as I lay.

The whole thought was now present -- feeble, scarcely sane, scarcely definite, but still entire.

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 took a frenzied pleasure in contrasting its downward with its lateral velocity.

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.

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.

Still I quivered in every nerve to think how slight a sinking of the machinery would precipitate that keen glistening axe upon my bosom.

Arousing from the most profound of slumbers, we break the gossamer web of some dream.

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.

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.

After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum.

Down -- still unceasingly -- still inevitably down!

The difficulty, nevertheless, was but trivial, although, in the disorder of my fancy, it seemed at first insuperable.

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?

I took a frenzied pleasure in contrasting its downward with its lateral velocity.

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.

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.

The figures of fiends in aspects of menace, with skeleton forms and other more really fearful images, overspread and disfigured the walls.

I saw that two of its iron angles were now acute -- two consequently, obtuse.

At the same time, my forehead seemed bathed in a clammy vapor, and the peculiar smell of decayed fungus arose to my nostrils.

Plainly I perceived the loosening of the bandage.

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.

Then again sound, and motion, and touch, a tingling sensation pervading my frame.

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!

Still I quivered in every nerve to think how slight a sinking of the machinery would precipitate that keen glistening axe upon my bosom.

I alternately laughed and howled, as the one or the other idea grew predominant.

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.

My excessive fatigue induced me to remain prostrate, and sleep soon overtook me as I lay.

But how fearful, in that case, the proximity of the steel!

Even then while I gazed, they came up in troops hurriedly, with ravenous eyes, allured by the scent of the meat.

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.

At length for my seared and writhing body there was no longer an inch of foothold on the firm floor of the prison.

Could I have broken the fastenings above the elbow, I would have seized and attempted to arrest the pendulum.

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.

I knew that in more than one place it must be already severed.

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.

The intensity of the darkness seemed to oppress and stifle me.

A suffocating odour pervaded the prison!

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.

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.

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.

Like a razor also it seemed massy and heavy, tapering from the edge into a solid and broad structure above.

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.

A fearful idea now suddenly drove the blood in torrents upon my heart, and for a brief period I once more relapsed into insensibility.

A slight noise attracted my notice, and looking to the floor, I saw several enormous rats traversing it.

At first I proceeded with extreme caution, for the floor although seemingly of solid material was treacherous with slime.

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.

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 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.

It now occurred to me that the bandage or surcingle which enveloped me was UNIQUE.

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.

As a natural consequence, its velocity was also much greater.

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.

For many hours the immediate vicinity of the low framework upon which I lay had been literally swarming with rats.

I saw them writhe with a deadly locution.