第2章

The wine sparkled in his eyes and the bells jingled.My own fancy grew warm with the Medoc.We had passed through walls of piled bones, with casks and puncheons intermingling, into the inmost recesses of catacombs.I paused again, and this time Imade bold to seize Fortunato by an arm above the elbow.

"The nitre!" I said; "see, it increases.It hangs like moss upon the vaults.We are below the river's bed.The drops of moisture trickle among the bones.Come, we will go back ere it is too late.Your cough--""It is nothing," he said; "let us go on.But first, another draught of the Medoc."I broke and reached him a flagon of De Grave.He emptied it at a breath.His eyes flashed with a fierce light.He laughed and threw the bottle upwards with a gesticulation I did not understand.

I looked at him in surprise.He repeated the movement--a grotesque one.

"You do not comprehend?" he said.

"Not I," I replied.

"Then you are not of the brotherhood."

"How?"

"You are not of the masons."

"Yes, yes," I said; "yes, yes."

"You? Impossible! A mason?"

"A mason," I replied.

"A sign," he said, "a sign."

"It is this," I answered, producing a trowel from beneath the folds of my roquelaire.

"You jest," he exclaimed, recoiling a few paces."But let us proceed to the Amontillado.""Be it so," I said, replacing the tool beneath the cloak and again offering him my arm.He leaned upon it heavily.We continued our route in search of the Amontillado.We passed through a range of low arches, descended, passed on, and descending again, arrived at a deep crypt, in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame.

At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less spacious.Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of Paris.Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented in this manner.From the fourth side the bones had been thrown down, and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a mound of some size.Within the wall thus exposed by the displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior recess, in depth about four feet in width three, in height six or seven.It seemed to have been constructed for no especial use within itself, but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of their circumscribing walls of solid granite.

It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavoured to pry into the depth of the recess.Its termination the feeble light did not enable us to see.

"Proceed," I said; "herein is the Amontillado.As for Luchesi--""He is an ignoramus," interrupted my friend, as he stepped unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels.In an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered.Amoment more and I had fettered him to the granite.In its surface were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet, horizontally.From one of these depended a short chain, from the other a padlock.Throwing the links about his waist, it was but the work of a few seconds to secure it.He was too much astounded to resist.Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess.