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 two-fold 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
have not 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.
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