Unreal! Even while I breathed there came to my nostrils the breath of the vapour of heated iron! A suffocating odour pervaded the prison! A deeper glow settled each moment in the eyes that 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 tormentors—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 endeavoured to appreciate or understand what was taking place. But not long was I left in doubt. The inquisitorial vengeance had been hurried by my twofold 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 centre, 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 was 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.

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我不清楚有幾多同學會跟我一樣那麼喜歡這篇故事. 中一中二上的literature堂我都讀了好些真的很不錯的英國文學, 當然最深而且看完之後對我幫助最大的會是中一那本莎翁的selected stories, 不過那兩年的四五本各有特色我全都很喜歡. 中三那本雖然也很好看, 不過我覺得沒什麼特別, 所以不被我列入我的"literature堂喜愛書本"名單內, 小六那本雙城記已經可以把它比了下去, 何況是中一二那幾本.

那幾本好書裡面, 令我最大開眼界的是這本Tales of Mystery and Imagination, 作者是Edgar Allan Poe. 去年暑假回澳我也有把它拿出來再看一次, 仍然是很好看. 入面其中的一個chapter: The Pit and the Pendulum 更是全書令我最投入的, 看到中間, 我竟然真的會出汗....書中其他故事也很"可怕地可愛" -- The Masque of the Red Death, The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Purloined Letter 等, 也很吸引我.....當然, The Pit and the Pendulum 還是我最愛的, 也就是說, 我最享受投入進去的, 好像我真的就是被困在那黑房間的人一樣, 聽到那搖擺著的刀聲慢慢向著我靠近........

不知道有多少人可以明白我這裡說的一切, 但如果你可以在這個故事裡找到一些什麼"快感", 或你看出了什麼道理來, 很榮幸, 我跟你起碼在一件事裡面會是知己.