[adapted]

by
Edgar Allan Poe

I was very sick—sick almost to death from that long pain. When they finally untied me, and I was allowed to sit up, I felt like I was losing my senses. The sentence—the terrible sentence of death—was the last clear thing I heard. After that, the voices of the judges all blended into one soft, unclear sound. It made me think of turning—maybe because it reminded me of the spinning of a mill wheel.

This feeling only lasted a short time. Soon, I could hear nothing at all. But for a while, I could still see. And what I saw was terrible! I saw the lips of the judges in black robes. They looked white—whiter than the paper I’m writing on now. Their lips were so thin, they looked strange. They looked thin because they were pressed tight with a strong, cold feeling—like they didn’t care about human pain.

I saw that they were still speaking, still giving the orders of what I thought was Fate. I saw their lips move to say my name. I felt afraid, because I heard no sound. I also saw, for just a few moments of scary confusion, the soft, slow movement of the dark curtains that covered the room’s walls.

Then my eyes looked at the seven tall candles on the table. At first, they looked kind and hopeful, like white, thin angels who might save me. But then, all of a sudden, I felt a sick feeling deep in my body. I felt a shock run through me, like touching an electric wire. The candles turned into strange, scary shapes with heads of fire. I knew they would not help me.

Then, slowly, a peaceful thought came to me, like soft music. I thought about how sweet it must be to rest in the grave. The thought came gently and quietly. It took time for me to fully feel it. But just as I began to accept that peaceful idea, the judges disappeared, like magic. The tall candles vanished. Their flames went out. Darkness took over everything. All my feelings were lost in a wild, fast fall—like my soul was dropping into the land of the dead. Then came silence, stillness, and night. The whole world was just darkness.

I had fainted; but I don’t believe I had lost all my senses. Whatever part of my mind stayed awake, I cannot explain or describe—but it wasn’t completely gone. Even in the deepest sleep—no! Even in a dream—no! Even in a faint—no! Even in death—no! Not everything is lost, even in the grave. If that were true, then people would not have souls that live on after death.

When we wake from deep sleep, we break the thin thread of a dream. But just a second later, we may not even remember that we dreamed. Coming back to life from a faint has two parts: first, you feel alive in your mind or soul. Then, you feel alive in your body. Maybe, if we could remember clearly what we felt in that first part, we would understand something about the world beyond death. But what is that world? How can we know if it’s different from the darkness of a tomb?

Even if we can’t remember those thoughts when we want to, they sometimes come to us later, and we wonder where they came from. The person who has never fainted is not the one who sees strange castles or familiar faces in the glow of hot coals. He is not the one who sees sad pictures floating in the air—pictures that most people can’t see. He is not the one who is moved by the smell of a strange flower or confused by the sound of a piece of music he has never heard before.

Many times I tried hard to remember. I struggled to bring back something from that time when it seemed like I was nothing. Sometimes I thought I had done it. For a very short moment, I remembered things that, when I later thought about them clearly, could only have come from that time of faintness. Those strange memories tell, in a blurry way, about tall shapes that picked me up and carried me silently, down—down—still going down—until I felt dizzy just thinking about how far I was falling.

The memories also speak of a strange fear in my heart, because my heart felt too quiet. Then came a feeling that everything had suddenly stopped moving. It was like the people carrying me had gone so far down that they reached the end of endless space, and had to stop from being so tired. After that, I remember the feeling of flatness and wetness. And then—all was madness. Madness from a memory trying to look at things too dark and too strange to understand.

Suddenly, I felt movement and sound again. My heart was beating fast, and I could hear the sound in my ears. Then everything went blank again. Then came the sound and movement again, and a tingling feeling through my whole body. Then I could only feel that I was alive, but I could not think. That feeling lasted for a long time. Then suddenly, I could think again—and with that came a terrible fear, and a strong effort to understand where I was. Then I wished I could faint again and escape the fear. Then my soul woke up again, and I managed to move. I remembered the trial, the judges, the black curtains, the sentence, my sickness, and fainting. After that, I forgot everything else—except for small bits I’ve remembered later with much effort.

So far, I hadn’t opened my eyes. I felt I was lying on my back, and I was not tied down. I reached out with my hand and it landed on something wet and hard. I kept it there for several minutes while I tried to guess where I was and what had happened. I wanted to open my eyes, but I was afraid. I was not scared of seeing horrible things—but I was even more afraid of seeing nothing at all. At last, full of wild fear, I quickly opened my eyes. My worst fear was true. There was only blackness, like a never-ending night, all around me. I gasped for air. The heavy darkness felt like it was choking me. The air was thick and hard to breathe. Still, I stayed quiet and tried to think clearly. I remembered the judges and tried to understand what my situation was. I had been sentenced. I felt a lot of time had passed since then. But I did not think I was dead. Even though stories sometimes say so, people don’t feel alive if they are truly dead. But where was I? And what kind of place was I in?

I knew people sentenced to death were usually killed at public burnings, and one had happened the night of my trial. Had they sent me back to my prison to wait for the next event, maybe months later? That didn’t make sense. They needed victims right away. Also, I knew my old prison—and all the death cells in Toledo—had stone floors, and they weren’t completely dark.

A terrible thought suddenly rushed into my mind and made my heart beat wildly. I fainted again. When I woke up, I jumped to my feet, shaking all over. I reached out with my arms in every direction. I felt nothing. I was afraid to take even one step, in case I hit the walls of a tomb. Cold sweat poured from my body, and large drops formed on my forehead. The waiting and fear became too much to bear, so I carefully moved forward with my arms out in front of me and my eyes wide open, hoping to see even a tiny bit of light. I walked many steps, but everything was still completely dark and empty. I started to breathe a little easier. It seemed clear that I was not in the worst kind of prison.

As I kept walking slowly forward, many strange stories I had heard about the horrors of Toledo came back to me. People had told creepy tales about the dungeons there—stories I always thought were just made up. But now they came to my mind again, too scary to even repeat out loud. Was I going to be left here to die from hunger in this underground darkness? Or was something even worse going to happen? I knew my judges well enough to be sure that I was going to die—and that my death would be very painful. The only things I didn’t know were how and when it would happen.

My hands finally touched something solid. It was a wall—smooth, wet, and cold, like stone. I followed the wall carefully, walking with great caution because of the old scary stories I had heard. But I still couldn’t figure out how big the prison was. The wall felt the same everywhere, so I might have walked in a full circle and not even known it.

I reached for the knife that had been in my pocket when I was taken to the courtroom, but it was gone. My clothes had been changed to a rough robe. I had planned to stick the knife in the wall to mark where I started. Since I couldn’t do that, I had another idea. I tore off a piece of cloth from the bottom of my robe and placed it straight out from the wall. That way, if I walked in a full circle, I would touch it again and know I had made it all the way around.

At least, that’s what I thought. I hadn’t guessed how big the dungeon was—or how tired I would become. The floor was wet and slippery. I walked for a while, then tripped and fell. I was so tired that I stayed on the ground and soon fell asleep.

When I woke up and reached out my arm, I found a piece of bread and a pitcher of water beside me. I was too weak to wonder who had brought them, but I ate and drank quickly. After that, I continued walking along the wall. Finally, I found the piece of cloth again. Before I fell, I had counted fifty-two steps, and after waking up, I had walked forty-eight more. That meant the whole trip was one hundred steps. If two steps made one yard, then the dungeon was fifty yards around. I had found many corners in the wall, so I still didn’t know the shape of the room. But I was sure it was some kind of underground vault.

I had no real reason—or hope—for these searches, but I was curious, so I kept going. I left the wall and decided to walk straight across the middle of the room. At first, I moved very carefully, because the floor, even though it felt solid, was slippery. But soon I got braver and began to walk with more confidence, trying to go in a straight line. I had gone about ten or twelve steps when the torn piece of my robe got tangled around my legs. I stepped on it and fell hard on my face.

At first, I was too confused to notice anything strange. But after a few seconds, as I still lay on the ground, I realized something unusual. My chin was touching the floor, but my lips and the top of my head weren’t touching anything—even though they should have been lower. At the same time, my forehead felt damp, like there was cold, wet air, and I smelled something moldy, like rotting fungus.

I reached out my arm and felt a chill. I had fallen right on the edge of a round pit. I couldn’t tell how deep it was. I found a small piece of stone near the edge and dropped it in. I listened as it bounced down the walls of the hole. Finally, I heard it splash into water, followed by echoing sounds. Right then, I heard something above me—it sounded like a door opening and closing quickly. A faint flash of light lit up the room for a moment, then vanished.

I now clearly understood the kind of death that had been planned for me, and I felt lucky to have fallen when I did. If I had taken one more step before I fell, I would have died and been gone forever. And the death I had just avoided was exactly the kind I used to think was just made-up, silly stories about the Inquisition. But for its victims, there were two kinds of death: one with terrible pain to the body, and one with horrible fear for the mind. I had been saved for the second kind. Because of everything I had been through, my nerves were so weak that I shook even at the sound of my own voice. I was now the perfect person for the kind of torture they planned.

Shaking all over, I felt my way back to the wall. I decided I would rather die there than take a chance with the pits. I imagined there were many of them hidden all around the room. If I had been in a different state of mind, maybe I would have had the courage to throw myself into one and end it all. But now, I was too afraid. And I remembered reading that death in the pits didn’t come quickly. That made them even worse.

I was so upset and nervous that I couldn’t sleep for many hours. But finally, I dozed off. When I woke up, I found a loaf of bread and a pitcher of water next to me, just like before. I was very thirsty, and I drank all the water at once. It must have been drugged, because right away I felt very sleepy. A deep sleep came over me—it felt almost like death. I don’t know how long I slept, but when I opened my eyes again, I could see things around me. There was a strange yellowish light filling the room. I didn’t know where it came from, but it let me see how big the prison was and what it looked like.

I had been very wrong about how big the place was. The whole circle of the walls was no more than twenty-five yards. For a while, I felt very upset by this mistake. But really, what could matter less than the size of the prison, when I was in such a terrible situation? Still, my mind focused on little things, and I spent time trying to figure out how I had gotten it wrong.

Then I understood. The first time I walked around, I had counted fifty-two steps before I fell. I must have been only a step or two away from the piece of cloth I had placed. That meant I had almost walked the whole way around the room. After sleeping, I must have walked back in the same direction I came from, without realizing it. That made me think the room was twice as big as it really was. My confused mind didn’t notice that I had started my walk with the wall on my left and ended with it on my right.

I had also been wrong about the shape of the room. When I felt the walls, I thought there were lots of sharp corners and turns, so I thought the shape was very odd. But this was because of the total darkness and the way I had just woken from sleep. The corners were really just small dips in the walls here and there. The room was mostly square.

What I had thought was stone now seemed to be metal—huge plates of iron or something like it. The lines between the plates had caused the dips I had felt before. The whole surface of the metal was painted with scary and ugly pictures—drawings of demons and skeletons, and even worse things, based on old scary beliefs from monks. I could still see the outlines of these terrible images, but the colors were faded and blurry, like they had been damaged by wet air. Then I looked at the floor, which was made of stone. In the middle of the floor was the round hole—the pit I had almost fallen into. But it was the only one in the prison.

I saw all this only a little, and with great effort—because something had changed while I was asleep. I was now lying flat on my back on a kind of low wooden bed. I was tightly tied to it with a long strap, wrapped around my arms, legs, and body many times. Only my head and my left arm were free—just enough so that, with a lot of effort, I could feed myself from a clay dish placed on the floor next to me. To my horror, I saw that the pitcher of water had been taken away. I was very thirsty, and it seemed like my captors had planned this—because the food in the dish was meat covered in strong, spicy seasoning that made me even thirstier.

I looked up and examined the ceiling. It was about thirty or forty feet above me, and looked a lot like the walls—made of big metal plates. In one panel, I saw a strange picture that caught my full attention. It was a painting of Time, as he is often shown, except instead of a scythe, he held what looked like a huge swinging pendulum, like the ones in old clocks. But something about it seemed odd, and made me look more closely. As I stared at it—right above me—I thought I saw it move. A moment later, I was sure it was moving. It swung back and forth in a short, slow motion. I watched it for a few minutes—partly scared, but mostly curious. After a while, I got tired of watching its slow swing, and looked around at the other things in the room.

Then I heard a soft noise. Looking down at the floor, I saw some huge rats running across it. They were coming from the pit just to my right. Even while I was watching, more and more came out, quickly, with hungry eyes, drawn by the smell of the meat. I had to try very hard to keep them away from me and the food.

Maybe half an hour passed—maybe a full hour, I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t keep track of time very well. When I finally looked up again, what I saw shocked and confused me. The swinging pendulum now reached about a yard farther with each swing. Naturally, it was moving faster too. But what truly scared me was that it had clearly come down lower.

I saw—terrified to say it—that the bottom of the pendulum had a curved blade made of shiny steel, about a foot wide from tip to tip. The blade curved upward like a crescent moon, and the bottom edge looked sharp like a razor. Like a razor, it was thick and heavy, getting wider and more solid toward the top. It was attached to a thick metal rod, and the whole thing made a hissing sound as it sliced through the air.

I no longer doubted what was planned for me—some terrible torture created by the cruel minds of monks. The judges must have found out that I had discovered the pit—the pit meant for someone like me, someone who refused to give in. That pit, thought to be the worst of all their punishments, was like a symbol of hell. I had barely escaped falling into it by pure chance. And since I had not fallen, they wouldn’t just throw me in—that would not match their cruel ways. Instead, another kind of death was planned for me. A softer one, they might say. “Softer!” I almost laughed at that word, even in my fear.

What is the use in describing those long, long hours of terror, worse than any pain? I lay there watching the blade swing back and forth, lower and lower, little by little—so slowly I could only tell it moved after what felt like ages. Maybe many days passed before it came close enough to stir the air on my skin as it swung by. The sharp metal gave off a bitter smell that filled my nose. I prayed—I prayed so much that I felt tired of praying. Then I went crazy, trying to lift my body into the path of the blade to end it faster. After that, I suddenly became very calm. I lay there smiling at the shining blade above me, like a child looking up at a shiny toy.

There was another time when I blacked out completely. It didn’t last long—because when I woke up again, the pendulum didn’t seem any lower. But maybe it had been a long time. I imagined evil beings watching me during my faint, and that they had the power to stop the swinging whenever they liked. When I came to, I felt terribly sick and weak, as if I hadn’t eaten in a long time. Even in the middle of all this fear and pain, I was still hungry. I painfully stretched my left arm, as far as the ropes would let me, and grabbed what little food the rats had left behind. As I put a piece in my mouth, a strange, half-formed feeling came to me—something like happiness or hope. But why should I have hope? Still, the feeling came—though it died quickly before I could fully understand it. I tried hard to bring the thought back, to finish it, but I couldn’t. I had suffered so much that my mind barely worked anymore. I felt like a fool—a complete idiot.

The pendulum swung across my body at a right angle. I could tell it was aimed to cut across my chest, right where my heart was. At first, it would just cut my robe. Then it would swing back again—and again. Even though it moved with a wide sweep (more than thirty feet) and made a loud hissing noise as it came down, it would only tear my clothes at first. For a little while, that’s all it would do. I couldn’t bear to think past that. I kept focusing on just that one idea, as if thinking about it hard enough would somehow stop the blade from coming down. I forced myself to imagine what the sound of the blade would be like when it cut through my robe—how the touch of cloth being torn makes your nerves tingle. I thought about this strange detail so much that it made my teeth ache.

Down—slowly, steadily—it kept coming. I began to feel a crazy sort of thrill comparing how fast it moved side to side with how slowly it came down. Right to left—left to right—with the scream of something damned! But toward my heart, it crept like a stalking tiger. I began to laugh like a madman, then howl in fear—as each thought took over my mind.

Down—always down, without stopping! The swinging blade now hung only three inches above my chest! I struggled wildly and desperately to free my left arm. But it was only loose from the elbow to the hand. I could barely reach the food dish beside me and bring it to my mouth, but no farther. If only I could have freed my arm completely, I might have tried to grab the pendulum and stop it. But that would have been like trying to stop an avalanche!

Still, the blade kept coming—down, down! I gasped and struggled each time it swung. I flinched in terror every time it passed over me. My eyes followed it as it swung up and out, full of hopeless fear. But I squeezed them shut every time it came down, even though death might have been a blessing—such a great relief! Still, every part of me shook at the thought that even a small drop in the blade’s height could make it cut into my chest. What made me tremble? Hope. It was hope that kept my nerves alive—hope that still exists even when a person is being tortured—hope that whispers to the condemned, even in a dark prison of the Inquisition.

I figured out that maybe ten or twelve more swings would bring the blade into contact with my clothes. And with that thought, something strange happened. I suddenly became very calm—calm in a way that comes only with deep despair. For the first time in many hours—or maybe days—I began to think clearly. I realized that the strap, or band, tying me down was unusual. It wasn’t made of many ropes. It was one long strap. If the razor-sharp blade could cut through even part of it, I might be able to unwind it from my body with my free hand.

But how terrifying it would be to wait for the blade to cut it! If I moved too much, the blade might kill me. And besides, would my torturers really be so careless as to let the strap cross exactly where the pendulum swung? I feared this small bit of hope would disappear. I lifted my head a little to see my chest clearly.To my surprise, the strap was wrapped tightly around my limbs and body in all directions—except right where the deadly blade was swinging!

I had just rested my head again when suddenly, the full idea of how I might escape came into my mind. Before, I had only thought of part of it, when I brought food to my dry lips. Now, I had the whole idea—weak, strange, and unclear—but still complete. I acted right away, using the last bit of energy that despair gave me.

For many hours, the area around the low wooden frame I was tied to had been full of rats. They were wild, bold, and hungry. Their red eyes stared at me as if they were just waiting for me to stop moving so they could attack. “What kind of food,” I wondered, “have they gotten used to down in the pit?”

Even though I had tried to stop them, they had eaten almost everything in the dish beside me. I had gotten into a habit of waving my hand back and forth to keep them away, but I did it the same way each time, and eventually it stopped working. They were so hungry that they bit my fingers again and again. Now, I took the little bit of oily, spicy food that was left and rubbed it all over the strap wherever I could reach it. Then, I lifted my hand off the floor and lay completely still, holding my breath.

At first, the hungry rats were scared by the sudden stillness. They backed away in fear, and many ran back toward the pit. But this only lasted a moment. I had not trusted their hunger for nothing. When they saw I wasn’t moving, one or two of the braver rats jumped onto the wooden frame and sniffed the strap. That was the signal. More rats rushed out from the pit. They climbed onto the wood—they covered it—and jumped by the hundreds onto my body. The swinging pendulum did not scare them at all. They stayed away from its swing and focused on the oily strap. They pushed—they crowded over me in growing piles. They slid across my throat; their cold mouths touched my face; I could hardly breathe from their weight. A terrible feeling—worse than words can describe—filled my chest and made my heart cold and heavy. But I knew it would be over soon. I could feel the strap getting looser. I was sure it was already cut in more than one place. With superhuman strength, I forced myself to stay still.

I had not been wrong in my plan—I had not suffered for nothing. At last, I felt I was free. The strap hung in pieces from my body. But the pendulum had already touched my chest. It had cut through my robe. It had sliced the linen shirt under it. Two more times it swung, and sharp pain ran through my body. But now was my chance to escape. I waved my hand, and the rats scattered in a rush. Then, slowly and carefully, I slid away from the strap’s hold and out of the pendulum’s reach. For now, at least, I was free.

Free!—but still in the hands of the Inquisition! I had barely stepped off the wooden frame of horror and onto the stone floor, when the terrible machine stopped moving. I watched it get pulled up through the ceiling by some invisible force. I learned something important then—something that made me feel desperate. I was definitely being watched. Free!—I had escaped death in one horrible way, only to face another, possibly worse. That thought made me look around nervously at the iron walls around me. Something had changed—something strange—but at first, I couldn’t tell what it was. For a long time, in a dreamy and shaky state, I tried to figure it out, but I couldn’t. Then I noticed, for the first time, where the glowing light in the room was coming from. It came from a thin crack, about half an inch wide, that ran all the way around the base of the walls. The walls looked like they were now separate from the floor. I tried to peek through the crack, but of course, I couldn’t see anything.

As I stood up from trying to look, I suddenly realized what had changed in the room. Before, the shapes painted on the walls had clear outlines, but their colors were blurry and faded. Now, those colors had turned bright and vivid—growing even more intense with every second. The creepy, ghost-like pictures now looked so real and terrifying, they would have scared even the bravest person. Thousands of evil eyes glared at me from all sides, where before there had been none. They glowed with a burning fire that I couldn’t convince myself was only in my imagination.

It felt unreal!—Even as I breathed, I could smell the hot iron in the air! A choking smell filled the prison! The eyes on the walls that stared at me seemed to glow brighter and brighter with a fiery red. The painted scenes of blood looked even redder and more terrifying. I was panting! I struggled to breathe! There was no question now about what my torturers were planning—oh! they were so cruel! So evil! I moved away from the burning metal toward the center of the cell. While I was thinking about the fire that was coming, the idea of the cold water in the well came to my mind like a gentle, calming touch. I ran to the edge of the deadly hole. I stared down, forcing my tired eyes to look. The red light from the burning ceiling lit up even the bottom of the pit. But for a moment, my mind couldn’t understand what I was seeing. Then finally, the truth pushed its way into my thoughts—it hit me like a burning pain in my soul. Oh, how I wished I could scream! Oh, what horror!—anything but this! With a loud cry, I ran away from the edge and covered my face with my hands—crying bitterly.

The heat grew stronger very quickly, and again I looked up, shaking like I had a fever. There had been another change in the room—and now it was clear that the shape of the cell was changing. At first, I couldn’t understand what was happening. But soon I saw it clearly. The cruel punishers were angry because I had escaped death twice, and they would wait no longer. The room had been square, but now I saw that two corners had become sharp, and the other two had become wide. The change happened quickly, with a low rumbling sound. In just a moment, the room became the shape of a diamond.

But it didn’t stop there—I didn’t expect or even want it to stop. I almost wanted to hug the burning walls, as if they were a peaceful end. “Death,” I said, “any death but the pit!” Fool! I should have known that the fiery walls were meant to push me into the pit. Could I resist their heat? Even if I could, could I hold out against their pressure?

Now the diamond shape grew flatter and flatter, and it happened so fast I couldn’t even think. The widest part of the room was now right over the open hole. I tried to move back—but the closing walls pushed me forward without stopping. Finally, there was no space left to stand on the solid floor. I didn’t fight anymore. My soul let out one long, loud scream of despair. I felt myself fall forward over the edge—I turned my eyes away—

Then I heard the noise of many people! There was a blast of loud trumpets! A terrible grinding noise like thunder filled the air! The burning walls moved back! And just as I fell, a hand reached out and grabbed me. It was General Lasalle. The French army had entered Toledo. The Inquisition had been defeated.