The Pit and the Pendulum, starring Mr. Raymond Burr.
A tale well calculated to keep you in suspense.
I was sick, sick unto death with that long agony.
And when at length they unbound me, and I was permitted to sit,
I felt that my senses were leaving me.
The sound of the inquisitorial voices seemed merged in one dreamy indeterminate hum,
from which emerged the syllables of my name.
Jean Delbray, Captain Jean Delbray.
Good fathers, gentlemen.
We hear you, my son.
Even now I have no knowledge of where I am, or to whom I may be speaking.
You are speaking to Fra Pedro de Spila, prior of the Dominicans of Segovia,
and Grand Inquisitor of all Spain.
This then is the court of the Inquisition?
It is.
But I am French. I am a French officer.
That is true.
A soldier and creature of the Archfiend, the Antichrist, Napoleon Bonaparte,
who even now is at the gates of Madrid, while his General Lassalle
menaces our city of Toledo itself.
Nonetheless, I am a prisoner of war.
By what right do you try me in this court?
Let the charges against the prisoner be read.
Item, that on the fourth day of September in the year of our Lord 1808,
the said Captain Jean Delbray did wed and espouse that most noble lady,
the Doña Beatriz Valdez, niece and ward of the...
One moment.
Your Excellency.
This marriage was a deplorable thing, if you like.
But lawful marriage, however regrettable in a case like this,
is no sin or crime.
There are other matters in the indictment.
Then continue.
But give us nothing that is not material.
Item, that on the 12th of October 1808, the said Jean Delbray,
being in command of a battery of light artillery,
did direct the fire of his guns against the Holy Church of Santa Marta the Innocent,
and thereby, of his wicked malice, destroyed that church utterly.
Captain Delbray, is this charge true?
Yes.
You admit it?
Good Father, the church blew up, did it not?
Would you boast of your sin, young man?
It blew up because it was stored with kegs of gunpowder for your army.
I had every right to fire on it.
And that is all the defense you have to make?
I tell you I had every right to fire on it, by military law.
By military law, above God's law.
I don't know.
I did my duty.
Long lived the Emperor.
Captain Delbray, mark what I say.
No man, however great his heresy is, condemned to be burnt in the fire,
if he first recant and acknowledge the error of his ways.
Do you so?
I cannot.
I was under orders.
I obeyed them.
Then, Jean Delbray, there can be no mercy, no pity, since there is no atonement.
The sentence of this...
I had never heard the sentence. I had swooned in terror.
Yet, there are shadows of memory which told me indistinctly of tall figures that lifted me
and bore me in silence, down, down, still down,
until a hideous dizziness suppressed me at that descent into the earth.
Then, as consciousness swam back to my wits again,
I opened my eyes to see darkness, a damp stone floor, and darkness.
Oh, Beatrice, Beatrice, my wife.
Did you call me, Jean?
Beatrice, you?
Here in the dungeons of the Inquisition?
No, my poor Jean.
I am only here in your imagination.
Am I mad then?
No, but your brain is fevered. You only think you hear me.
I hear you clearly. You won't leave me?
As long as I am in your heart, I cannot leave you.
Have they chained you to the wall?
No. They've taken away my uniform. They've given me sandals, a robe, rough cloth, but I'm unchained.
Can you stand up, Jean?
I think so. Yes.
Then walk. Walk as far as you can. Measure the limits of the cell. This is not a tomb.
I'll try, Beatrice. I'll try. This robe impedes me. The floor is treacherous with slime, but I'll try.
Look out! Are you all right?
I've fallen on my face. The robe tripped me, but...
What is it?
Beatrice, my hand is in front of me lower than my face, but I feel nothing.
Nothing, Jean?
It's a pit, a deep circular pit, and I fell on... on the very edge of it.
They would have had you walk into it.
Yes.
But you didn't. You're saved.
Saved, Beatrice? Saved? Saved for what?
At last a deep sleep fell upon me, a sleep like that of death. How long it lasted, I know not.
But when I opened my eyes once again, I could see. Yes, see. My prison was large and lofty, its walls formed of massive iron plates.
A wild, sulfurous luster, I could not trace its origin, lit up the dungeon and the circular pit.
I could see, but I could not move.
I lay on my back on a low framework of wood, securely bound by a long fastening, resembling surgical bandage.
The bandage passed round and round my body, leaving at liberty only my head and my left arm.
With much exertion, I could supply myself with food from an earthen dish on the floor beside me.
It was meat, highly seasoned, and there was no water.
Beatrice? Beatrice, where are you?
I am here, Jean.
Your voice sounds stronger, and I can see you.
You are weaker, my dear, and more fevered.
Look, Beatrice.
Where?
At the ceiling of this room, 30, 40 feet up. What do you see?
I see painted on the ceiling a figure of Father Time.
Yes, but this Father Time carries no size.
He carries instead what looks like a gigantic pendulum from an ancient clock, and the pendulum is moving.
The painting cannot move.
Yet I swear the pendulum did. It swung a little back and forth, just like a real pendulum.
Beatrice, take care.
Take care of what?
Take care of the rats, the rats from the pit.
They're swarming out in dozens.
You can see their eyes glitter. What do they want?
They've caught the scent of the meat in the dish beside you.
Oh, but they'll not get it. Now go, go away, O'Vernon.
Goodbye, Jean, goodbye.
Beatrice, I can hardly hear you.
You're sending me away, Jean.
I... sending you away?
My poor loved one. You can't bear to see the rats running about my feet, can you?
Even when you know I'm not here.
Beatrice.
It's true, Jean. You're sending me away.
Yes, it's true.
The cells swarming with vermin.
There are others I would rather see here. I would rather see...
Call me Captain Delbray. Then in spirit I am here.
Would you were here in the flesh, friar Antonio.
Listen, Captain Delbray. Do you hear anything?
Yes, I hear... something.
Turn your eyes upwards. Look at the ceiling.
The pendulum.
Aye, the pendulum.
It has descended.
Only a foot or so has yet. As you notice, it is not really a pendulum.
No?
No. It's underside is a crescent formed of razor sharp steel.
A ponderous weight, Captain Delbray. Its movement is slow now, but soon it will take on momentum.
It will swing wider and wider, and with each broad movement it will creep the trifle lower.
Directly over you. Directly about the region of your heart.
How long before?
It will not be too soon.
But how soon?
Who can tell?
Minutes, hours, days. Who can say how long it was?
It might have been many days before that hideous blade swept so closely as to fan me with its acrid breath.
Down, still unceasingly, still inevitably down.
Sharp steel was within three inches of my chest, and then, only then... Beatrice, Beatrice!
I hear you calling, John. I am here.
Oh, Beatrice.
Is there no hope, my dear?
How can there be? Ten, twelve more passages, and it will fray the threads of my robe.
Only lightly, as a razor in a delicate hand.
There will be many more sweeps down before it bites deep. I can't escape it.
And yet...
If I could only use my width...
You kept me away from you, John. You locked me out of your thoughts.
If I am here only in your thoughts, why should I fear the rats?
The rats? They still swarm here?
Across the floor and over the meat platter. They've taken nearly all your food.
Yes, they are ravenous. They have sharp teeth. The meat is oily and spiced.
If I take what remains of it...
Scatter, you vermin!
The rub rat meat and the bandages that hold me here.
Try it, John. Try.
Oh, it may be too late. If I move my body a fraction of an inch up...
Try it. I tell you, try.
Can I stand those rats crawling across me? Can the flesh bear it?
One of them has leaped on the wooden framework. Another follows. They're gnawing at the bandage.
Seven, eight more sweeps of the pendulum.
Does the bandage give way?
A little.
Lie still, John. Lie still.
Ten dozen rats now.
Is death, I wonder, worse than this disgust?
A dozen sharp knives could do no better. The bandage is loose into ribbons.
If you move sideways, carefully, and drop to the floor...
Beatrice, I can't move. My arms and legs are numb. There's no power to...
The deal has frayed your robe. A moment more will be too late. Try.
Then, with all the strength that is in me, and the hatred I bear my enemies...
You're free!
A second time. Free.
See, John, the pendulum stops. They're drawing it back up through the ceiling.
Each move I make is watched. You never doubted that.
No. Yet with all they could do to you, they have failed twice.
They will not fail a third time, my dear.
Listen, what's that?
A groaning? A grinding? Is it metal?
It is only the cogwheels of the pendulum.
I think not, Beatrice.
Why not?
It seems to come from behind these iron-plated walls. It seems to shake the dungeon as a millwheel might shake it.
Stand up! Get off your knees!
I can't, Beatrice. I can't endure anymore.
Don't you sense even now the odor of heated iron?
Heated iron?
The walls are beginning to glow red.
Oh, Beatrice, I have been much humbled.
But I won't have you see me in tears. Now I order you to go.
John, in the name of Heaven...
Yes, in the name of Heaven, go!
A suffocating heat pervaded the prison.
I could draw no breath of air into my lungs.
Against the loom of that fiery destruction, the cool pit beckoned, hideous with crawling things.
Does the pit please you, Captain Delprey?
You again.
Do you find its contents pleasing?
No more than your company.
And how shall you avoid it? Look.
This dungeon has changed its shape.
That is true. The walls are closing in.
It was formerly a square, and now it is flattening slowly toward the center.
To force me into the pit?
Of course.
It will force you along with me.
Again, apparently you must be told, Captain Delprey, that you are speaking only to your own sick fancy.
I am not here at all.
And now flatter and flatter grew the red-hot walls.
I shrank back, but the closing walls pressed me relentlessly onward toward the loathsome pit.
At length, for my seared and writhing body, there was no longer an inch of foothold.
I screamed once, I tottered on the edge of the pit, I averted my eyes.
Then, then, there was a discordant hum of human voices.
There was a loud blast as of many trumpets.
The fiery walls rushed back.
An outstretched arm caught my own as I fell fainting into the abyss.
The outstretched arm of General Lassalle.
The French army had entered Toledo.
The Spanish Inquisition was in the hands of its enemy.