This Section was created for all my collections. It starts with my original work, and ends with some of my favorite works by some of my favorite writers. Feel free to e-mail me with comments on my works. Always rememeber that you are not an artist unless someone critisizes your work. Enjoy, Amanda.

Dedicated to my wonderful husband. I love you forever.

My love has a hold on me in ways you can't describe.

If only I had a way to explain, but I can only try.

I will begin my unworthy words with the best wart I know how.

Details in depth, my words begin now.

Heat. Intense, fiery, burning, searing, close to damnable heat.

Slow and steady breathing, my lover's rythm matches my own.

I lie here in your arms resting at home.

Never expecting, never guessing, your mind at one with my own.

Your hands glide up and down my skin arousing my senses, as well as my mind.

The breathing is getting heavier, our souls now intertwined.

Looking into your eyes I feel a fire like i've never felt before, my mind is craving more.

With still no words in play, your hands are covering me, awakening me in every unthinkable way.

My lover is kissing me with such fervency as to make passion look lazy.

My mind is dancing, reeling, laughing, and it's toying with crazy.

Oh, your tender mouth moves to my tender neck, and your hunger for my soul is animal.

Latching on with forever, i was embraced by my lover, and my lover's love is nothing short of eternal.

Searing, swelling, pricking my skin, my blood is your blood. Take it. My skin is your skin, my body is your body.

I never want to open my eyes, mind, body, and soul, from this point to the so-called end.

I will lie in this, lie forever, in my lover's bloody kiss.

Solitude.

Staring into the eyes of nothing, trying not to speak.

Blackness in, Blackness out, the darkness is filling up my head.

Breathe. Breathe. Breathe delicately, breathe slowly.

Once in, once out.

Thoughts are fighting, clawing. Screaming for a place.

Stop.

Can’t.

Breathe.

Eyes desperately opening, searching for a face.

I wanna look to the left, it’s pointless.

I wanna look to the right as well. No reason.

Feeling the quizzical sensation of falling.

Going through the motions of reaching for a place to hold on.

Finding nothing but emptiness, I remember, your not there.

When will you return?

When will I justify the time spent waiting?

No one knows.

Only God knows.

So I wait.

I lie in wait.

Until you come again, until you take your place.

I, will lie in wait forever.

January 6^th 2007

The second in a collection of my crazy ramblings.

What Does This Mean To You?

Wrong deeds, wrong words, wrong place, wrong time.

Another fucking day, means another fucking line.

Whispering, watching, wanting, waiting,

Never achieving, never grasping, always seeking, always thinking.

Now it comes, and it comes from the North.

It comes from the North as it comes from the South,

It comes from the hate as it spews from your mouth.

Sickening words, come with the sickening glares,

that come with the pain of sickening voices.

Sickening loneliness that comes from my sickening choices

Now comes the hard part, the part that’s never easy.

Do you take the easy way, the way that never bends,

the way it breaks, forsakes, blinds, and overtakes?

Or do you choose the other way, the way that’s never clear?

The frightening uncertainty of something so familiar.

Entertain for just a moment, and listen to that voice.

The one that asks you, do you really use your mind at all,

or do you follow someone’s else’s voice?

Surprise yourself and someone else, by thinking for yourself.

Ask yourself just one time, and you might get something different.

Did I really have a point in this, or am I fucking with your mind.

Most important thing to gain from this is simply this in the end.

What should all this mean to me, but what does all this mean to you?

November 7^th 2006

The first of a collection of my crazy ramblings.

I wanna talk about fear. Some people have a fear of small spaces. Some have a fear of heights, or Even a fear of water. My fear is one that is unique. One that breaks me everyday, and begs for Solace. It is consuming like the vertigo of a neverending bad dream. It overwhelms and overtakes. It blinds you and takes your light away. Sometimes I wonder if we are born into a purpose, or if We are here only to prove a point so the cosmos can win their bet with time. My fear talks to me And tells me to do what I want. My fear frightens me because there is no control to the degree Of disdain that this buried within my chest. I have loved and lost, and loved again, only to lose Again. I beg you, how many times can you repeat this vicious cycle? How many times can you see The same movie? Different actors, different setting and plot, but always the same finale.  Me, left On the stage of life with the spotlight of my destiny illuminating my somber soliloquy. Once again, Repeating the same discord about how I have been wronged, and how my heart should have Known better. My heart is never my own, it's fate, doomed to repeat itself, and in that I fear it is it's Own worst enemy. I long for that dreamless sleep, where I don't have to watch my fears retell Itself to me, as if I could just dream of nothingness. I have dreamt those dreams, the ones where You never want to wake up. Funny how the mind always has a way to show you what you can't Have. I have named my fear. This is my fear. Cardiophobia. Fear of the heart. Yes, the very thing That gives me life, gives me fear. I fear my heart more than anything in this Reality. I fear it because it is the one thing that seems to betray me the most. However, I seemed to Have found my hearts indescretions to have an achille's heal. My perserverence. I will conquer this Giant in my life. One day I will learn how to tame my shrew. For now, I will just pick up my feet And walk. I will find my light again, when I overcome this fear of the heart.

Have you ever had a love that could make every second seem like an eternity? Have you ever swam in the depths of your lovers love? My heart is broken and unfixable, and the whole world sometimes seems imposible. I knew a love that was deeper than the deep, a love that you loved in your sleep, a love that could take your breath away, a love that I knew yesterday. My body aches for my best friends touch, and my heart wants what is always asking too much. I wake up every morning with a new sense of the day, but I still feel like I am dreaming, and it seems like I will not wake. I am without a clue as to what to do, but my mind is saying, do what is best for you. Well, as I sat and thought, I knew my mind was right, and so I opened my eyes and realized that i will be okay. I just want you to know, as you lay down to sleep, that regardless of what happens, my heart is yours to keep. I want you to remember, all the love we shared, a love that was very rare, I am sorry for your heartache, even when you wake, realizing that I am no longer by your side. If I could have my way, I would ask God everyday, that happiness comes to you in whatever way. I love every inch of your face, the feel of your embrace, the knowledge that you were there for me, and the sheer pleasure of your company. My heart will always ache for you, no matter what we do, and regardless of the outcome, I will find my way to move on. Your the best thing that ever happened to me, for all the things that you taught to me. I will always long for your smile, and wish it were for me. Have you ever had a love that you knew it was so pure, and knowing that they are what you adore? I ask not to be a bother, but merely for a second of your time, to let me explain to you, the way I feel inside. If you ever listened, now's a good time. You are in every face I see, In every line of poetry, in every lover's smile. I feel you there in bed with me, but I know that is just a fantasy. I don't want to forget you, that's why your picture is in my room. This is my last love letter to you, my best friend, my love.

Dedicated to my son, Asher.

What is beauty exactly? I think beauty really is what some people want it to be. Some say a sunny day is beautiful, I think the rain is beautiful. Some think the outgoing girl with long blonde hair and a perfect figure is beautiful, but do you know her heart? Maybe she is hurt on the inside, maybe she is sad who would know? Many take her for granted, she may be ugly on the inside, her heart troubled and broken by the empty promises of the drugs she takes. She inwardly cries for help, look into her eyes and see who she really is, waking up in cold sweat of a nightmare of her past, or maybe of her future, who knows? You look at her plastic smile, her perfect hair, her perfect teeth, and say, my, she is beautiful, I look into her eyes, the window to the heart, and I see pain. You call it beautiful, I call it sad. Now take the other girl, the girl behind her in her shadow. She wants to be beautiful, and popular, and loved. She is the one you all overlooked with hair that is not long and flowing, but mid-length, and dry. Eyes that tell a long tale of broken hearts and wants. That has a body that tells of childbirth, and I know the heart of this girl, the one who finds beauty in the rainy days. In seeing a child laugh, seeing someone smile. Looking at an old married couple staring into each others eyes, and sharing silent memories of years gone by. She is the one who goes unnoticed. She wanted to be beautiful, and popular, and loved, she, the one who stands quietly by. She has endless love in her heart to give. This is not meant to be dark, or depressing, but meant rather to be heard, sort of a lesson, for beauty is more than skin deep. So who is to say who is beautiful, and loved? She knows she is loved, she knows she is needed and appreciated. She does not need to be told. She can hold her head up high and be proud of who she is. Won't you listen to my heart for there is beauty in this world that you can't see or hear, just feel. So do not take these things for granted, for they are what matters most. I am the ordinary girl, and I know I am beautiful.

These are the only two songs I have written.

Perfection 

Looking at your face,
I am trying to erase,
all of the pain and suffering,
you were never there for me.

Did you know that everynight,
I would stare, unaware of what was happening.
Afraid to lose, afriad to admit,
But when it all comes down to it,
You aren't worth it......anymore.

You made me love, and you walked away.
You made me believe, and you decieved.
You did things to me that can never be fixed.
So, you know....i'm better than that.
Better than you,
Better than your perfection.

Do I love you?  Well no.
Do I care?  Well yes,
But as far as I am concerned,
You are just another lesson learned.
When you speak of me,
You speak of anger.
When I speak of you, it puts me in danger.

You made me love, and you walked away.
You made me believe, and you decieved.
You did things to me that can never be fixed.
So, you know....i'm better than that,
Better than you,
Better than your perfection.

I guess you can't really turn around,
And see what's going down,
So you choose to hide,
Behind your pathetic ways.
Endless, day after day...how can you live that way?
This is why I can never love your excuses anymore.

You made me love, and you walked away.
You made me believe, and you decieved.
You did things to me that can never be fixed.
So, you know....i'm better than that,
Better than you,
Better than your perfection.
I deserve better than your messed up version of perfection.         

When I think I love you, you show me how to hate everything you do.

When I think I understand, You twist every part of the memory I once had.

You build a wall around me, and shelter me from living a life I wanna have.

So everyday, it's the same argument, the same obstacle standing in my way.

So I need you to hear me out this time.

 I need you to understand, that perf ect isn't in me

And I can't grasp a reality I once had.

And that's the way it is, and if you can't take that, then all I can say is,

That's ok, i'm not you, Never really wanted to be you.

But now your hands are around my mind, and I can't speak, I try to scream,

But your anger is hurting me...irreversibly.

I can see it in your eyes, I can feel it in your heart.

You want me to be someone perfect, someone better than you are.

Why can't I be me, in my own reality.

Searching for a peace that can only bring relief to me.

 But while your screaming in my ear, and I cry in fear, the only thing that comes clear is,

 Perfect isn't in me, and I can't grasp a reality that i never had.

And that's the way it is, and if you can't take that, then all I can say is,

That's ok, i'm not you, never really wanted to be you.

But now your hands are around my mind, and I can't speak, I try to scream,

But your anger is hurting me...irreversibly.

Please just understand that.....

Perfect isn't in me, and if that's not good enough for you,

Then I can only say, that's ok, I'm not you,

I never really wanted to be you.

     I need you to understand, that my heart was in your hands,

And with all my soul, you made me feel like I was losing control.

But that's ok, never wanted to be you.

Extreme pain is all you ever gave me,

Your anger never swayed me,

From, loving you.

But that was long ago, So now all I have to say is,

Goodbye.

These are some short stories that I have written. Enjoy.

As I walk down this hall I see many doors, as far as the eye can see, and I am seeing that the doors go on and that is all I can see. I choose to keep walking, to see if there is an end but there is none. So I decide to entertain my curiosity, and open a door. I reach out and with an unsteady handI turn the knob on the door in front of me. The door opens, and I am hesitant to open my eyes for fear of what I might see. Slowly I open my eyes and I see a small girl with blonde hair. She stands up from her chair, the only item in the room, and walks to me. She reaches out her small hand, and looks into my eyes, and takes me by the hand. I look at her, and she looks up at me, and then she spoke. She said, "follow me, I want to show you some things." So we walked hand in hand down this hall with many doors, and it seems like forever until she stops, and when she does she points to another door. So I take a deep breath and reach for the knob once again, afraid of what I might find on the other side. I open the door, and to my left I see a small child, that looks stunningly similar to the one that lead me to this door, only this one was slightly older. She was on her knees and she was praying, this is her prayer. "Dear God, it's me again. I just wanted to talk to you. I know you are there even though I can't see you. I just wanted to ask you if you could give me a real family, one that is loving, and one where I fit in. I know you are listening, please send your angels to watch over me, amen." Then the door closes, and I turn to see the little girl that is standing behind me, and I see that she is crying. I ask her why she is crying, and she smiles, and says nothing, only reaches out to take my hand once again. She leads me to another door, and I open this door. I can feel the perspiration rolling down my face, as I reach out to open this door. I open it, and I see the same girl, only older, and she is on her knees again, she was praying, this is her prayer. " Dear God, it's me again. I just wanted to talk to you. I know you are there even though I can't see you. i just wanted to ask you if you could give me a real family, one that is loving, and one where I fit in. I know you are listening, please send your angels to watch over me, amen." I close the door and ponder this a moment, thinking what can this mean? I turn to see that the little girl that was my guide is gone. I start down the hall, because I know that I won't find my way out until I see what I am meant to see. So I continue, and open another door. I see the same girl behind every door, only every time I see her she gets older, and develops into a woman, and the whole time she has her face down praying the same prayer. " Dear God, I just wanted to talk to you, I know you are there even though I can't see you. I just wanted to ask you if you could give me a real family, one that is loving, and one where I fit in. I know you are listening, please send your angels to watch over me, amen." Finally, I come to a curve in the hall, and when I turn the corner, I see one more door. So I proceed to open this door, the last door in my hallway, and I see the girl, the girl that grew into a woman, only now she is much older. She is about to pray again, only this time it is different. I look around this room, and there are pictures everywhere. I look at the pictures, and I see this woman, her husband, and her children. The walls are covered in these pictures. Then the woman starts to kneel down and pray once more. This is her prayer. " Dear God, it's me again. I just wanted to talk to you, I know you are there even though I can't see you. I just wanted to thank you for giving me a real family, one that is loving, and one where I fit in. I know you are listening, please send your angels to watch over me, amen." Then the woman stands up, and walks over to her bed, and just before she lies down, she looks at me with tears rolling down her smiling face and she says, "God is faithful." She lies down and closes her eyes to sleep, and I wake up.

December 15th, 2003 

The Raven

Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered, weak and weary,

Over many a quaint and curious volume of forgotten lore,

While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping,

As of some one gently rapping, rapping at my chamber door.

"Tis some visitor," I muttered, "tapping at my chamber door ---

Only this, and nothing more."
 

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December,

And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Eagerly I wished the morrow; --- vainly I had sought to borrow

From my books surcease of sorrow --- sorrow for the lost Lenore ---

For the rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore ---

Nameless here for evermore.
 

And the silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain

Thrilled me --- filled me with fantastic terrors never felt before;

So that now, to still the beating of my heart, I stood repeating,

"Tis some visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door ---

Some late visitor entreating entrance at my chamber door; ---

This it is, and nothing more."
 

Presently my soul grew stronger; hesitating then no longer,

"Sir," said I, "or Madam, truly your forgiveness I implore;

But the fact is I was napping, and so gently you came rapping,

And so faintly you came tapping, tapping at my chamber door,

That I scarce was sure I heard you" --- here I opened wide the door; ---

Darkness there, and nothing more.
 

Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,

Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortals ever dared to dream before;

But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,

An the only word there spoken was the whispered word, "Lenore! "

This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, "Lenore! " ---

Merely this, and nothing more.
 

Back into the chamber turning, all my soul within me burning,

Soon again I heard a tapping somewhat louder than before.

"Surely," said I, "surely that is something at my window lattice:

Let me see, then, what thereat is, and this mystery explore ---

Let my heart be still a moment and this mystery explore; ---

'Tis the wind and nothing more."
 

Open here I flung the shutter, when, with many a flirt and flutter,

In there stepped a stately raven of the saintly days of yore;

Not the least obeisance made he; not a minute stopped or stayed he;

But, with mien of lord or lady, perched above my chamber door ---

Perched upon a bust of Pallas just above my chamber door ---

Perched, and sat, and nothing more.
 

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,

By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.

"Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou," I said, "art sure no craven,

Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore ---

Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night's Plutonian shore! "

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
 

Much I marvelled this ungainly fowl to hear discourse so plainly,

Though its answer little meaning --- little relevancy bore;

For we cannot help agreeing that no living human being

Ever yet was blest with seeing bird above his chamber door ---

Bird or beast upon the sculptured bust above his chamber door,

With such name as "nevermore."
 

But the raven, sitting lonely on the placid bust, spoke only

That one word, as if his soul in that one word he did outpour.

Nothing further then he uttered --- not a feather then he fluttered ---

Till I scarcely more than muttered, "other friends have flown before ---

On the morrow he will leave me, as my hopes have flown before."

Then the bird said, "Nevermore."
 

Startled at the stillness broken by reply so aptly spoken,

"Doubtless," said I, "what it utters is its only stock and store,

Caught from some unhappy master whom unmerciful Disaster

Followed fast and followed faster till his songs one burden bore ---

Till the dirges of his Hope that melancholy burden bore

Of  'Never --- nevermore'."
 

But the Raven still beguiling all my fancy into smiling,

Straight I wheeled a cushioned seat in front of bird, and bust and door;

Then upon the velvet sinking, I betook myself to linking

Fancy unto fancy, thinking what this ominous bird of yore ---

What this grim, ungainly, ghastly, gaunt and ominous bird of yore

Meant in croaking "Nevermore."
 

This I sat engaged in guessing, but no syllable expressing

To the fowl whose fiery eyes now burned into my bosom's core;

This and more I sat divining, with my head at ease reclining

On the cushion's velvet lining that the lamplight gloated o'er,

But whose velvet violet lining with the lamplight gloating o'er,

She shall press, ah, nevermore!
 

Then methought the air grew denser, perfumed from an unseen censer

Sung by Seraphim whose footfalls tinkled on the tufted floor.

"Wretch," I cried, "thy God hath lent thee --- by these angels he hath sent thee

Respite --- respite and nepenthe, from thy memories of Lenore!

Quaff, oh quaff this kind nepenthe and forget this lost Lenore!"

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
 

"Prophet! " said I, "thing of evil! --- prophet still, if bird or devil! ---

Whether Tempter sent, or whether tempest tossed thee here ashore,

Desolate yet all undaunted, on this desert land enchanted ---

On this home by horror haunted --- tell me truly, I implore ---

Is there --- is there balm in Gilead? --- tell me --- tell me, I implore! "

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
 

"Prophet! " said I, "thing of evil! --- prophet still, if bird or devil!

By that Heaven that bends above us --- by that God we both adore ---

Tell this soul with sorrow laden if, within the distant Aidenn,

It shall clasp a sainted maiden whom the angels name Lenore ---

Clasp a rare and radiant maiden whom the angels name Lenore."

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
 

"Be that word our sign in parting, bird or fiend, I shrieked, upstarting ---

"Get thee back into the tempest and the Night's Plutonian shore!

Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken!

Leave my loneliness unbroken! --- quit the bust above my door!

Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door! "

Quoth the Raven, "Nevermore."
 

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting

On the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door;

And his eyes have all the seeming of a demon's that is dreaming,

And the lamp-light o'er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor;

And my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor

Shall be lifted --- nevermore!

Poe wrote this poem in May 1849 . . . the same year he died, and it was published two days after his death.  The  inspiration for Annabel Lee is unknown, but it is widely considered to have been his wife,Virginia.

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee: ---

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.
 

She was a child and I was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love ---

I and my Annabel Lee ---

With a love that the wingéd seraphs of Heaven

Coveted her and me.
 

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud by night

Chilling my Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.
 

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me; ---

Yes! that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of a cloud, chilling

And killing my Annabel Lee.
 

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we ---

Of many far wiser than we ---

And neither the angels in Heaven above

Nor the demons down under the sea,

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee; ---
 

For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise but I see the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling, my darling, my life and my bride,

In her sepulchre there by the sea ---

In her tomb by the side of the sea.

The Tell Tale Heart  (1843)

True!--nervous--very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses--not destroyed--not dulled them. Above all was the sense of hearing acute. I heard all things in the heaven and in the earth. I heard many things in hell. How, then, am I mad? Hearken! and observe how healthily--how calmly I can tell you the whole story.

It is impossible to say how first the idea entered my brain; but once conceived, it haunted me day and night. Object there was gone. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture--a pale blue eye, with a film over it. Whenever it fell upon me, my blood ran cold; and so by degrees--very gradually--I made up my mind to take the life of the old man, and thus rid myself of the eye for ever.

Now this is the point. You fancy me mad. Madmen know nothing. But you should have seen me. You should have seen how wisely I proceeded--with what caution--with what foresight--with what dissimulation I went to work! I was never kinder to the old man than during the whole week before I killed him. And every night, about midnight, I turned the latch of his door and opened it--oh, so gently! And then, when I had made an opening sufficient for my head, I put in a dark lantern, all closed, closed, so that no light shone out, and then I thrust in my head. Oh, you would have laughed to see how cunningly I thrust it in! I moved it slowly--very, very slowly, so that I might not disturb the old man's sleep. It took me an hour to place my whole head within the opening so far that I could see him as he lay upon his bed. Ha!--would a madman have been so wise as this? And then, when my head was well in the room, I undid the lantern cautiously--oh, so cautiously--cautiously (for the hinges creaked)--I undid it just so much that single ray fell upon the vulture eye. And this I did for seven long nights--every night just at midnight--but I found the eye closed; and so it was impossible to do the work; for it was not the old man who vexed me, but his Evil Eye. And every morning, when the day broke, I went boldly into the chamber, and spoke courageously to him, calling him by name in a hearty tone, and inquiring how he had passed the night. So you see he would have been a very profound old man, indeed, to suspect that every night, just at twelve, I looked in upon him while he slept.

Upon the eighth night I was more than usually cautious in opening the door. A watch's minute hand moves more quickly than did mine. Never before that night had I felt the extent of my own powers--of my sagacity. I could scarcely contain my feelings of triumph. To think that there I was, opening the door, little by little, and he not even to dream of my secret deeds or thoughts. I fairly chuckled at the idea; and perhaps he heard me; for he moved on the bed suddenly, as if startled. Now you may think that I drew back--but no. His room was as black as pitch with the thick darkness (for the shutters were close fastened, through fear of robbers), and so I knew that he could not see the opening of the door, and I kept pushing it on steadily, steadily.

I had my head in, and was about to open the lantern, when my thumb slipped on the tin fastening, and the old man sprang up in the bed, crying out--"Who's there?"

I kept quite still and said nothing. For a while I did not move a muscle, and in the meantime I did not hear him lie down. He was still stting up in the bed listening;--just as I have done, night after night, hearkening to the death watches in the wall.

Presently I heard a slight groan, and I knew it was the groan of mortal terror. It was not a groan of pain or of grief--oh no!--it was the low stifled sound that arises from the bottom of the soul when overcharged with awe. I knew the sound well. Many a night, just at midnight, when all the world slept, it has welled up from my own bosom, deepening, with its dreadful echo, the terrors that distracted me. I say I knew it well. I knew what the old man felt, and pitied him, although I chuckled at heart. I knew that he had been lying awake ever since the first slight noise, when he had turned in bed. His fears had been ever since growing upon him. He had been trying to fancy them causeless, but could not. He had been saying to himself--"It is nothing but the wind in the chimney--it is only a mouse crossing the floor," or "it is merely a cricket which has made a single chirp." Yes, he had been trying to comfort himself with these suppositions; but he had found all in vain. All in vain; because Death, in approaching him, had stalked with his black shadow before him, and enveloped the victim. And it was the mournful influence of the unperceived shadow that caused him to feel--although he neither saw nor heard--to feel the presence of my head within the room.

When I had waited a long time, very patiently, without hearing him lie down, I resolved to open a little--a very, very little crevice in the latern. So I opened it--you cannot imagine how stealthily, stealthily--until, at length, a single dim ray, like the thread of the spider, shot from out the crevice and full upon the vulture eye.

It was wide open--wide, wide open--and I grew furious as I gazed upon it. I saw it with perfect distinctness--all a dull blue, with a hideous veil over it that chilled the very marrow in my bones; but I could see nothing else of the old man's face or person: for I had directed the ray as if by instinct, precisely upon the damned spot.

And now have I told you that what you mistake for madness is but over-acuteness of the senses?--now, I say, there came to my ears a low, dull, quick sound, such as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I knew that sound well too. It was the beating of the old man's heart. It increased my fury, as the beating of a drum stimulates the soldier into courage.

But even yet I refrained and kept still. I scarcely breathed. I held the lantern motionless. I tried how steadily I could maintain the ray upon the eye. Meantime the hellish tattoo of the heart increased. I grew quicker and quicker, and louder and louder every instant. The old man's terror must have been extreme! It grew louder, I say, louder every moment!--do you mark me well? I have told you that I am nervous: so I am. And now at the dead hour of the night, amid the dreadful silence of that old house, so strange a noise as this excited me to uncontrollable terror. Yet, for some minutes longer I refrained and stood still. But the beating grew louder, louder! I thought the heart must burst. And now a new anxiety seized me--the sound would be heard by a neighbor! The old man's hour had come! With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once--once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eye would trouble me no more.

If still you think me mad, you will think so no longer when I describe the wise precautions I took for the concealment of the body. The night waned, and I worked hastily, but in silence. First of all I dismembered the corpse. I cut off the head and the arms and legs.

I then took up three planks from the flooring of the chamber, and deposited all between the scantlings. I then replaced the boards so cleverly, so cunningly, that no human eye--not even his --could have detected any thing wrong. There was nothing to wash out--no stain of any kind--no blood-spot whatever. I had been too wary for that. A tub had caught all--ha! ha!

When I had made an end of these labors, it was four o'clock--still dark as midnight. As the bell sounded the hour, there came a knocking at the street door. I went down to open it with a light heart,--for what had I now to fear? There entered three men, who introduced themselves, with perfect suavity, as officers of the police. A shriek had been heard by a neighbor during the night; suspicion of foul play had been aroused; information had been lodged at the police office, and they (the officers) had been deputed to search the premises.

I smiled,--for what had I to fear? I bade the gentlemen welcome. The shriek, I said, was my own in a dream. The old man, I mentioned, was absent in the country. I took my visitors all over the house. I bade them search--search well. I led them, at length, to his chamber. I showed them his treasures, secure, undisturbed. In the enthusiasm of my confidence, I brought chairs into the room, and desired them here to rest from their fatigues, while I myself, in the wild audacity of my perfect triumph, placed my own seat upon the very spot beneath which reposed the corpse of the victim.

The officers were satisfied. My manner had convinced them. I was singularly at ease. They sat, and while I answered cheerily, they chatted familiar things. But, ere long, I felt myself getting pale and wished them gone. My head ached, and I fancied a ringing in my ears: but still they sat and still chatted. The ringing became more distinct:--it continued and became more distinct: I talked more freely to get rid of the feeling: but it continued and gained definitiveness--until, at length, I found that the noise was not in my ears.

No doubt I now grew very pale;--but I talked more fluently, and with a heightened voice. Yet the sound increased--and what could I do? It was a low, dull, quick sound--much such a sound as a watch makes when enveloped in cotton. I gasped for breath--and yet the officers heard it not. I talked more quickly--more vehemently; but the noise steadily increased. I arose and argued about trifles, in a high key and with violent gesticulations, but the noise steadily increased. Why would they not be gone? I paced the floor to and fro with heavy strides, as if excited to fury by the observation of the men--but the noise steadily increased. Oh God! what could I do? I foamed--I raved--I swore! I swung the chair upon which I had been sitting, and grated it upon the boards, but the noise arose over all and continually increased. It grew louder--louder--louder! And still the men chatted pleasantly, and smiled. Was it possible they heard not? Almighty God!--no, no! They heard!--they suspected!--they knew!--they were making a mockery of my horror!--this I thought, and this I think. But any thing was better than this agony! Any thing was more tolerable than this derision! I could bear those hypocritical smiles no longer! I felt that I must scream or die!--and now--again!--hark!--louder! louder! louder! louder! louder!--

"Villains!" I shrieked, "dissemble no more! I admit the deed!--tear up the planks!--here, here!--it is the beating of his hideous heart!

Poe wrote this Gothic tale in 1842.  A suspenseful, terrifying tale through the eyes of the victim of torture during the Spanish Inquisition.  After hundreds of years, the Inquisition in Spain had supposedly ended in 1834.

"Impia tortorum longas hic turba furores
Sanguinis innocui, non satiata, aluit.
Sospite nunc patria, fracto nunc funeris antro,
Mors ubi dira fuit vita salusque patent."

[Quatrain composed for the gates of a market to be erected upon the site of the Jacobin Club House at Paris.]

The Pit And The Pendulum

I was sick --- sick unto death with that long agony; and when they at length unbound me, and I was permitted to sit, I felt that my senses were leaving me. The sentence --- the dread sentence of death --- was the last of distinct accentuation which reached my ears.  After that, the sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum.  It conveyed to my soul the idea of revolution --- perhaps from its association in fancy with the burr of a mill-wheel. This only for a brief period, for presently I heard no more.  Yet, for a while, I saw --- but with how terrible an exaggeration!  I saw the lips of the black-robed judges. They appeared to me white --- whiter than the sheet upon which I trace these words --- and thin even to grotesqueness, thin with the intensity of their expression of firmness --- of immovable resolution --- of stern contempt of human torture. I saw that the decrees of what to me was Fate were still issuing from those lips.  I saw them writhe with a deadly locution. I saw them fashion the syllables of my name; and I shuddered because no sound succeeded. I saw, too, for a few moments of delirious horror, the soft and nearly imperceptible waving of the sable draperies which enwrapped the walls of the apartment. And then my vision fell upon the seven tall candles upon the table. At first they wore the aspect of charity, and seemed white slender angels who would save me; but then, all at once, there came a most deadly nausea over my spirit, and I felt every fibre in my frame thrill as if I had touched the wire of a galvanic battery, which 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, and night were the universe.

I had swooned; but still will not say that all of consciousness was lost. What of it there remained I will not attempt to define, or even to describe; yet all was not lost.  In the deepest slumber --- no!  In delirium --- no!  In a swoon --- no!  In death --- no!  even 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 state, 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 had 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 fé, 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 thing 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 the 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 fall 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 --- in these researches; but a vague curiosity prompted me to continue them. Quitting the wall, I resolved to cross the area of the enclosure.  At first, I proceeded with extreme caution, for the floor, although seemingly of solid material, was treacherous with slime.  At length, however, I took courage, and did not hesitate to step firmly --- 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 succeed 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, succeed 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 direct 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 position 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 have been greatly mistaken. The whole circuit of its walls did not exceed twenty-five yards. For some minutes this fact occasioned me a world of vain trouble; vain indeed! for what could be of less importance, under the terrible circumstances which environed me, than the mere dimensions of my dungeon? But my soul took a wild interest in trifles, and I busied myself in endeavors to account for the 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 then 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 charnal 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 center yawned the cirular 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 around my limbs and body, leaving at liberty only my head, and my left arm to some 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 saw to my horror; for I was consumed with intolerable thirst.  This thirst it appeared to be the design of my persecutors to stimulate --- for the food in the dish was meat pungently seasoned.

Looking upward, I surveyed the ceiling of my prison.  It was some thirty or forty feet overhead, and constructed much as the side walls.  In one of its panels a very singular figure riveted my whole attention.  It was the painted figure of Time as he is commonly represented, save that, in lieu of a scythe, he held what, at a casual glance, I supposed to be the pictured image of a huge pendulum, such as we see on antique clocks.  There was something, however, in the appearance of this machine which caused me to regard it more attentively.  While I gazed directly upward at it (for its position was immediately over my own) I fancied that I saw it in motion.  In an instant afterward the fancy was confirmed.  Its sweep was brief, and of course slow.  I watched it for some minutes somewhat in fear, but more in wonder.  Wearied at length with observing its dull movement, I turned my eyes upon the other objects in the cell.

A slight noise attracted my notice, and looking to the floor, I saw several enormous rats traversing it.  They had issued from the well which lay just within view to my right.  Even then, while I gazed, they came up in troops, hurriedly, with ravenous eyes, allured by the scent of the meat.  From this it required much effort and attention to scare them away.

It might have been half an hour, perhaps, even an hour (for I could take but imperfect note of time), before I again cast my eyes upward.  What I then saw confounded and amazed me.  The sweep of the pendulum had increased in extent by nearly a yard.  As a natural consequence its velocity was also much greater.  But what mainly disturbed me was the idea that it had perceptibly descended. I now observed --- with what horror it is needless to say --- that its nether extremity was formed of a crescent of glittering steel, about a foot in length from horn to horn; the horns upward, and the under edge evidently as keen as that of a razor.  Like a razor also, it seemed massy and heavy, tapering from the edge into a solid and broad structure above. It was appended to a weighty rod of brass, and the whole hissed as it swung through the air.

I could no longer doubt the doom prepared for me by monkish ingenuity in torture.  My 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, and I knew that surprise, or entrapment into torment, formed an important portion of all the grotesquerie of these dungeon deaths.  Having failed to fall, it was no part of the demon plan to hurl me into the abyss, and thus (there being no alternative) a different and a milder destruction awaited me. Milder!  I half smiled in my agony as I thought of such application of such a term.

What boots it to tell of the long, long hours of horror more than mortal, during which I counted the rushing 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 I felt also that it had perished in its formation.  In vain I struggled to perfect --- to regain it.  Long suffering had nearly annihilated all my ordinary powers of mind. I was an imbecile --- an idiot.

The vibration of the pendulum was at right angles to my region of the heart.  It would fray the serge of my robe --- it would return and repeat its operations --- again --- and again.  Notwithstanding its terrifically wide sweep (some thirty feet or more), and the hissing 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 further 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 whorls 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 --- that hope that triumphs on the rack --- that whispers to the death-condemned even in the dungeons of the Inquisition.

I saw that some ten or twelve vibrations would bring the steel in actual contact with my robe, and with this observation there suddenly came over my spirit all the keen, collected calmness of despair. For the first time during many hours --- or perhaps days --- I thought.  It now occurred to me, that the bandage, or surcingle, which enveloped me, was unique.  I was tied by no separate cord.  The first stroke of the razor-like crescent athwart any portion of the band would so detach it that it might be unwound from my person by means of my left hand. But how fearful, in that case, the proximity of the steel!  The result of the slightest struggle, how deadly!  Was it likely, moreover, that the minions of the torturer had not foreseen and provided for this possiblity?  Was it probable that the bandage crossed my bosom in the tract of the pendulum?  Dreading to find my faint and, as it seemed, my last hope frustrated, I so far elevated my head as to obtain a distinct view of my breast.  The surcingle enveloped my limbs and body close in all directions --- save 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 had previously alluded, and of which a moiety only floated indeterminately through my brain when I raised food to my burning lips.  The whole though 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 frame-work 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 and 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 framework, 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 every accumulating heaps.  They writhed upon my throat; their cold lips sought my own; I was half stilled 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 eyes nervously around on the barriers of iron that hemmed me in.  Something unusual --- some change which at first, I could not appreciate distinctly --- it was obvious, had taken place in the apartment.  For many minutes of a dreamy and trembling abstraction, I busied myself in vain, unconnected conjecture.  During this period, I became aware, for the first time, of the origin of the sulphurous light which illumined the cell.  It proceeded from a fissure, about half an inch in width, extending entirely around the prison at the base of the wall, 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 had 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 vapor of heated iron!  A suffocating odor pervaded the prison!   A deeper glow settled each moment in the eyes and 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 tormenters --- 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 endeavored to appreciate or understand what was taking place.  But not long was I left in doubt.  The Inquisitorial vengeance had been hurried by my two-fold escape, and there was to be no more dallying with the King of Terrors. The room had been square. I saw that two of its iron angles were now acute --- two, consequently, obtuse.  The fearful difference quickly increased with a low rumbling or moaning sound.  In an instant the apartment had shifted its form into that of a lozenge.  But the alteration stopped not here --- I neither hoped nor desired it to stop.  I could have clasped the red walls to my bosom as a garment of eternal peace.  "Death," I said, "any death but that of the pit! " Fool!  might I not have known that into the pit it was the object of the burning iron to urge me?  Could I resist its glow?  Or if even that, could I withstand its pressure?  And now, flatter and flatter, grew the lozenge, with a rapidity that left me no time for contemplation.  Its center, 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 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.