I sought about for Annie who had been present in a simple scarlet Harlequin mask, accompanied by three fully costumed individuals who could only have been Templeton, Griswold, and Von Kempelen.
All of them appeared already to have departed, however.
The chains which bound the ape-mummers moved about at the center of the circle they formed. All of them did not quite coincide in their crossings, though. Emerson took hold of the hook, and to it he affixed a chain, a second chain, a third chain. Though he caught hold of the fourth one on several occasions he could not draw it near enough to the hook to suspend it therefrom. There simply was not sufficient slack.
Finally, the three snagged chains were drawn taut. Their wearers felt the tension, began glancing back to the thing which seemed to have restricted their movement. At this, the hook began to rise. I looked upward, then down again in another direction to the place where the other end of the chain was wrapped about a drum, off in a shadowy corner where a diminutive figure in motley turned a crank.
Six of the ministers were hoisted into the air.
Prince Prospero and the minister to whom he was attached remained grounded. A shadow flashed by me. I moved to my shield.
Peters had rushed to the wall where he wrenched a flambeau from the hands of its Caryatid. He moved to a central position, to the place where now hung the six of the ministers who had watched Trippetta dance to her death.
He applied his torch to each in turn. The tar proved very flammable. Each burst into flame.
Shouts of fear rose on every hand, but these were submerged by the cries and moans of the living candles which turned and writhed overhead. The chains clinked and rasped; shadows darted like crazed spirits about the hall. And a hellish sound penetrated everywhere. It was several moments before I realized it to be Peters' mirthless laughter.
Turning, the prince took in the situation quickly. Reaching inside his costume, he withdrew a pistol. He raised it, then took aim in Peters' direction. A hairy form interposed itself, rushed toward him. He fired.
Emerson fell.
There followed total panic. I had my saber in my hand. The six ministers twisted, screamed and blazed overhead. Peters bellowed, locked the winch he'd operated and rose. He attempted to move forward then, but his way was blocked by a rush of bodies.
Then commenced the striking of midnight upon the great, dark clock.
Before the final echoes of the last chime faded the entire assembly had grown still. I was not certain what had occurred. It was as if some psychic wind had blown through the hall, touching upon everyone present, disarming us of sound and movement.
Save for one. I first became aware of the figure because it was the only thing moving, from out a dark corner which might well have concealed a passage; second, the grotesque costume it had on held every gaze from the moment of beholding. In all respects it was the form of one long dead, most likely from the very cause this crowd was here assembled to avoid—the Red Death.
Its gait was ungainly, lurching, its skin both pale as a toadstool and bright as blood as it passed from shadow to glare and back again, reflective of the blazing spectacle overhead; progress stumping, terrible, within a cloud of charnel-house smells which only then reached my nostrils; guise maggoty, moldy; manner single-minded; mien horrific. It came on, perfect embodiment of the group's nemesis.
But even more than the great horror this presence evoked was the revelation, to me, that this was not a matter of mask, makeup, or costuming. I knew this man, having seen him at our tunnel's farther end, where Peters had stripped him of his motley, his cap and bells. For this was Fortunato—plaguey, drunken associate of Montresor, dead, dead, dead, yet some how animate, moving down the aisle which opened before him, lurching subject of every stare as he reached to embrace Prospero, who shrieked at the contact and fell to the floor, retreating feet tangled in his chains, dragging his final minister with him.
The spell was broken. The noise and tumult returned. Daggers appeared in shaking hands. I brandished my blade and called to Peters. I snatched a torch, and when he looked my way I gestured in the direction where I thought the hidden passage lay. Casting a final look at his handiwork and a lingering one at his whilom companion, dead Emerson, Peters beat his way through the crowd and followed me into the passage.
These recent days be bloody stuff, And also recent dreams.
I seem to hear a phthisic cough By life's eternal streams.
Death lurks and laughs his ass off.
At least that's how it seems.
Untitled verse, Edgar Allan Perry
X
Edgar Allan Poe is dead. He died in Baltimore the day before yesterday. This announcement will startle many, but few will be grieved by it. The poet was well known personally or by reputation, in all this country; he had readers in England, and in several of the states of Continental Europe; but he had few or no friends; and the regrets for his death will be suggested principally by the consideration that in him literary art lost one of its most brilliant, but erratic, stars.
New York Daily Tribune
"Ludwig" (Rufus Griswold)
The passage we followed contained a stair which led down to another passageway, running beneath the courtyard. As we rushed through it, Peters moved in a daze of grief and exhaustion. I said nothing at first, simply moving and keeping him in motion till we emerged in the tunnel behind the storeroom where we had originally entered, its way almost totally blocked by a partial collapse of one wall. We finally sidled through via a narrow and very dusty adit.
I was able, at that point, to persuade Peters to discard his jester's costume. After that, we picked up the tools we had left behind on our entering, earlier in the year.
At the town end of the tunnel we discovered that Montresor had walled us in, which of course meant that he had also done it to Fortunato—a deed as grisly as any described in the tales of that master of the macabre, E. T. A. Hoffman, whose stories had filled many a slow hour for me at isolated army posts.
Had we dropped our tools down a well as Montresor had suggested we would have been trapped.
Peters swung his hammer with terrific force. Rather than helping him, I simply stayed out of his way. In a matter of minutes he had knocked a hole through the wall large enough for us to pass through.
Mounting quickly from the cellar we sought about the house. While there was no sign of Montresor, Ligeia responded to my hailing, emerging from an upstairs room, Grip perched upon her shoulder.
"Perry, damn it! Damn it, Perry!" the bird greeted me.
"Are you all right, Ligeia?" I asked.
"I am."
"Valdemar?"
"As always."
"Where's Montresor?"
"Gone away," she answered.
"I've a feeling we should do the same."
"Yes, I've packed a few things."
"I'll fetch your bag."
"It's already downstairs."
"You knew we were coming?"
"I sent Fortunato for you."
"Why?"
"The time was right."
"How will we travel?"
"There is a coach," she said, "beside the stables, out back."
"Then I think we should hitch up a team and head for the border," I said.
"No," she replied, "for Barcelona, and the sea. The Eidolon should be waiting."
"How did that come about?"
"Annie put it into Captain Guy's mind to sail there, quite some time ago."
"How do you know that?"
"I was about to do it myself one day when I realized it had already been done."
"Really," I said. "Is she your—"
"There are no horses left alive in the stables," she continued. "Help me fetch that tapestry down from the wall."
I looked in the direction of her gesture. The tapestry in question involved a man stabbing another man, somewhat to the rear, while an enormous and unusually colored horse stood statue-like in the foreground. I moved a small table near to the wall, mounted it and succeeded in removing the tapestry.