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"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 |