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Was it probable that the bandage crossed my bosom in the track of the pendulum? Dreading to find my faint,
and, as it seemed, in last hope frustrated, I so far elevated my head as to obtain a distinct view of my breast.
The surcingle enveloped my limbs and body close in all directions -- save in the path of the destroying
crescent.
Scarcely had I dropped my head back into its original position, when there flashed upon my mind what I
cannot better describe than as the unformed half of that idea of deliverance to which I have previously
alluded, and of which a moiety only floated indeterminately through my brain when I raised food to my
burning lips. The whole thought was now present -- feeble, scarcely sane, scarcely definite, -- but still entire. I
proceeded at once, with the nervous energy of despair, to attempt its execution.
For many hours the immediate vicinity of the low framework upon which I lay, had been literally swarming
with rats. They were wild, bold, ravenous; their red eyes glaring upon me as if they waited but for
motionlessness on my part to make me their prey. "To what food," I thought, "have they been accustomed in
the well?"
They had devoured, in spite of all my efforts to prevent them, all but a small remnant of the contents of the
dish. I had fallen into an habitual see-saw, or wave of the hand about the platter: and, at length, the
unconscious uniformity of the movement deprived it of effect. In their voracity the vermin frequently fastened
their sharp fangs in my fingers. With the particles of the oily and spicy viand which now remained, I
thoroughly rubbed the bandage wherever I could reach it; then, raising my hand from the floor, I lay
breathlessly still.
At first the ravenous animals were startled and terrified at the change -- at the cessation of movement. They
shrank alarmedly back; many sought the well. But this was only for a moment. I had not counted in vain upon
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their voracity. Observing that I remained without motion, one or two of the boldest leaped upon the
frame-work, and smelt at the surcingle. This seemed the signal for a general rush. Forth from the well they
hurried in fresh troops. They clung to the wood -- they overran it, and leaped in hundreds upon my person.
The measured movement of the pendulum disturbed them not at all. Avoiding its strokes they busied
themselves with the anointed bandage. They pressed -- they swarmed upon me in ever accumulating heaps.
They writhed upon my throat; their cold lips sought my own; I was half stifled by their thronging pressure;
disgust, for which the world has no name, swelled my bosom, and chilled, with a heavy clamminess, my
heart. Yet one minute, and I felt that the struggle would be over. Plainly I perceived the loosening of the
bandage. I knew that in more than one place it must be already severed. With a more than human resolution I
lay still.
Nor had I erred in my calculations -- nor had I endured in vain. I at length felt that I was free. The surcingle
hung in ribands from my body. But the stroke of the pendulum already pressed upon my bosom. It had
divided the serge of the robe. It had cut through the linen beneath. Twice again it swung, and a sharp sense of
pain shot through every nerve. But the moment of escape had arrived. At a wave of my hand my deliverers
hurried tumultuously away. With a steady movement -- cautious, sidelong, shrinking, and slow -- I slid from
the embrace of the bandage and beyond the reach of the scimitar. For the moment, at least, I was free.
Free! -- and in the grasp of the Inquisition! I had scarcely stepped from my wooden bed of horror upon the
stone floor of the prison, when the motion of the hellish machine ceased and I beheld it drawn up, by some
invisible force, through the ceiling. This was a lesson which I took desperately to heart. My every motion was
undoubtedly watched. Free! -- I had but escaped death in one form of agony, to be delivered unto worse than
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