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 inevit
ably 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
Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe Page 60