Amontillado [uh MON te YAH
doh] Dry, amber wine. The
name is derived from the Spanish town of Montilla, The suffix 'ado' means in the style of.
Catacombs Underground burial places.
Flambeau Torch; plural, flambeaux.
Médoc Red wine from the Bordeaux region of France.
Nemo me impune lacessit [NAY moh MAY im POO nay lah CHESS it] Latin for No one injures me with impunity.
Rheum [ROOM] Watery discharge.
Roquelaire [rok uh LAHR or rok LAHR] Obsolete
spelling for roquelaure, a knee-length, often fur-trimmed cloak named after
the Duc de Roquelaure (1656-1738)
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 upon 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," he
said.
"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 eves 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's 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 long walls of piled
skeletons, with casks and puncheons intermingling,
into the inmost recesses of the 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 Gráve. 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 from beneath the folds of my
roquelaire a trowel.
"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.
continue on page 3
_________________
reprinted from Tales of Mystery and Imagination
by Edgar Allan Poe
H. Frowde (1903)
