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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1063 ***
+
+The Cask of Amontillado
+
+
+by
+
+Edgar Allan Poe
+
+
+
+The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but
+when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.  You, who so well know
+the nature of my soul, will not suppose, however, that I gave utterance
+to a threat.  _At length_ I would be avenged; this was a point definitely
+settled--but the very definitiveness with which it was resolved,
+precluded the idea of risk.  I must not only punish, but punish with
+impunity.  A wrong is unredressed when retribution overtakes its
+redresser.  It is equally unredressed when the avenger fails to make
+himself felt as such to him who has done the wrong.
+
+It must be understood that neither by word nor deed had I given
+Fortunato cause to doubt my good will.  I continued, as was my wont, to
+smile in his face, and he did not perceive that my smile _now_ was at
+the thought of his immolation.
+
+He had a weak point--this Fortunato--although in other regards he was a
+man to be respected and even feared.  He prided himself on his
+connoisseurship in wine.  Few Italians have the true virtuoso spirit.
+For the most part their enthusiasm is adopted to suit the time and
+opportunity--to practise imposture upon the British and Austrian
+_millionaires_.  In painting and gemmary, Fortunato, like his countrymen,
+was a quack--but in the matter of old wines he was sincere.  In this
+respect I did not differ from him materially: I was skillful in the
+Italian vintages myself, and bought largely whenever I could.
+
+It was about dusk, one evening during the supreme madness of the
+carnival season, that I encountered my friend.  He accosted me with
+excessive warmth, for he had been drinking much.  The man wore motley.
+He had on a tight-fitting parti-striped dress, and his head was
+surmounted by the conical cap and bells.  I was so pleased to see him,
+that I thought I should never have done wringing his hand.
+
+I said to him--"My dear Fortunato, you are luckily met.  How remarkably
+well you are looking to-day!  But I have received a pipe of what passes
+for Amontillado, and I have my doubts."
+
+"How?" said he.  "Amontillado?  A pipe?  Impossible!  And in the middle
+of the carnival!"
+
+"I have my doubts," I replied; "and I was silly enough to pay the full
+Amontillado price without consulting you in the matter. You were not to
+be found, and I was fearful of losing a bargain."
+
+"Amontillado!"
+
+"I have my doubts."
+
+"Amontillado!"
+
+"And I must satisfy them."
+
+"Amontillado!"
+
+"As you are engaged, I am on my way to Luchesi.  If any one has a
+critical turn, it is he.  He will tell me--"
+
+"Luchesi cannot tell Amontillado from Sherry."
+
+"And yet some fools will have it that his taste is a match for your
+own."
+
+"Come, let us go."
+
+"Whither?"
+
+"To your vaults."
+
+"My friend, no; I will not impose upon your good nature.  I perceive
+you have an engagement.  Luchesi--"
+
+"I have no engagement;--come."
+
+"My friend, no.  It is not the engagement, but the severe cold with
+which I perceive you are afflicted.  The vaults are insufferably damp.
+They are encrusted with nitre."
+
+"Let us go, nevertheless.  The cold is merely nothing. Amontillado!
+You have been imposed upon.  And as for Luchesi, he cannot distinguish
+Sherry from Amontillado."
+
+Thus speaking, Fortunato possessed himself of my arm. Putting on a mask
+of black silk, and drawing a _roquelaire_ closely about my person, I
+suffered him to hurry me to my palazzo.
+
+There were no attendants at home; they had absconded to make merry in
+honour of the time.  I had told them that I should not return until the
+morning, and had given them explicit orders not to stir from the house.
+These orders were sufficient, I well knew, to insure their immediate
+disappearance, one and all, as soon as my back was turned.
+
+I took from their sconces two flambeaux, and giving one to Fortunato,
+bowed him through several suites of rooms to the archway that led into
+the vaults.  I passed down a long and winding staircase, requesting him
+to be cautious as he followed. We came at length to the foot of the
+descent, and stood together on the damp ground of the catacombs of the
+Montresors.
+
+The gait of my friend was unsteady, and the bells upon his cap jingled
+as he strode.
+
+"The pipe," said he.
+
+"It is farther on," said I; "but observe the white web-work which
+gleams from these cavern walls."
+
+He turned towards me, and looked into my eyes with two filmy orbs that
+distilled the rheum of intoxication.
+
+"Nitre?" he asked, at length.
+
+"Nitre," I replied.  "How long have you had that cough?"
+
+"Ugh! ugh! ugh!--ugh! ugh! ugh!--ugh! ugh! ugh!--ugh! ugh! ugh!--ugh!
+ugh! ugh!"
+
+My poor friend found it impossible to reply for many minutes.
+
+"It is nothing," he said, at last.
+
+"Come," I said, with decision, "we will go back; your health is
+precious.  You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as
+once I was.  You are a man to be missed.  For me it is no matter.  We
+will go back; you will be ill, and I cannot be responsible.  Besides,
+there is Luchesi--"
+
+"Enough," he said; "the cough is a mere nothing; it will not kill me.
+I shall not die of a cough."
+
+"True--true," I replied; "and, indeed, I had no intention of alarming
+you unnecessarily--but you should use all proper caution. A draught of
+this Medoc will defend us from the damps."
+
+Here I knocked off the neck of a bottle which I drew from a long row of
+its fellows that lay upon the mould.
+
+"Drink," I said, presenting him the wine.
+
+He raised it to his lips with a leer.  He paused and nodded to me
+familiarly, while his bells jingled.
+
+"I drink," he said, "to the buried that repose around us."
+
+"And I to your long life."
+
+He again took my arm, and we proceeded.
+
+"These vaults," he said, "are extensive."
+
+"The Montresors," I replied, "were a great and numerous family."
+
+"I forget your arms."
+
+"A huge human foot d'or, in a field azure; the foot crushes a serpent
+rampant whose fangs are imbedded in the heel."
+
+"And the motto?"
+
+"_Nemo me impune lacessit_."
+
+"Good!" he said.
+
+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 I made 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.  A moment 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.
+
+"Pass your hand," I said, "over the wall; you cannot help feeling the
+nitre.  Indeed, it is _very_ damp.  Once more let me _implore_ you to
+return.  No?  Then I must positively leave you.  But I must first
+render you all the little attentions in my power."
+
+"The Amontillado!" ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from his
+astonishment.
+
+"True," I replied; "the Amontillado."
+
+As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of which
+I have before spoken.  Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered a quantity
+of building stone and mortar.  With these materials and with the aid of
+my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the entrance of the niche.
+
+I had scarcely laid the first tier of the masonry when I discovered
+that the intoxication of Fortunato had in a great measure worn off. The
+earliest indication I had of this was a low moaning cry from the depth
+of the recess.  It was _not_ the cry of a drunken man. There was then a
+long and obstinate silence.  I laid the second tier, and the third, and
+the fourth; and then I heard the furious vibrations of the chain.  The
+noise lasted for several minutes, during which, that I might hearken to
+it with the more satisfaction, I ceased my labours and sat down upon
+the bones. When at last the clanking subsided, I resumed the trowel,
+and finished without interruption the fifth, the sixth, and the seventh
+tier.  The wall was now nearly upon a level with my breast.  I again
+paused, and holding the flambeaux over the mason-work, threw a few
+feeble rays upon the figure within.
+
+A succession of loud and shrill screams, bursting suddenly from the
+throat of the chained form, seemed to thrust me violently back.  For a
+brief moment I hesitated--I trembled.  Unsheathing my rapier, I began
+to grope with it about the recess; but the thought of an instant
+reassured me.  I placed my hand upon the solid fabric of the catacombs,
+and felt satisfied.  I reapproached the wall; I replied to the yells of
+him who clamoured.  I re-echoed--I aided--I surpassed them in volume
+and in strength.  I did this, and the clamourer grew still.
+
+It was now midnight, and my task was drawing to a close.  I had
+completed the eighth, the ninth, and the tenth tier.  I had finished a
+portion of the last and the eleventh; there remained but a single stone
+to be fitted and plastered in.  I struggled with its weight; I placed
+it partially in its destined position.  But now there came from out the
+niche a low laugh that erected the hairs upon my head.  It was
+succeeded by a sad voice, which I had difficulty in recognizing as that
+of the noble Fortunato.  The voice said--
+
+"Ha! ha! ha!--he! he! he!--a very good joke indeed--an excellent jest.
+We shall have many a rich laugh about it at the palazzo--he! he!
+he!--over our wine--he! he! he!"
+
+"The Amontillado!" I said.
+
+"He! he! he!--he! he! he!--yes, the Amontillado.  But is it not getting
+late?  Will not they be awaiting us at the palazzo, the Lady Fortunato
+and the rest?  Let us be gone."
+
+"Yes," I said, "let us be gone."
+
+"_For the love of God, Montresor!_"
+
+"Yes," I said, "for the love of God!"
+
+But to these words I hearkened in vain for a reply.  I grew impatient.
+I called aloud--
+
+"Fortunato!"
+
+No answer.  I called again--
+
+"Fortunato--"
+
+No answer still.  I thrust a torch through the remaining aperture and
+let it fall within.  There came forth in reply only a jingling of the
+bells.  My heart grew sick on account of the dampness of the catacombs.
+I hastened to make an end of my labour.  I forced the last stone into
+its position; I plastered it up.  Against the new masonry I re-erected
+the old rampart of bones.  For the half of a century no mortal has
+disturbed them.  _In pace requiescat!_
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's The Cask of Amontillado, by Edgar Allan Poe
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1063 ***