Defoe stared—then toppled to the floor.
“Bland! Bland! You! It’s you....”
And before the stranger that was Bland passed from the room he felt again of the heart of the craven hulk at his feet. The doctor had been right: The tumult in the breast of the twelfth juror had been too much.
If only Defoe had known that the Governor had pardoned Bland, his secret might have been safe forever.
Walter Scott Story offers
a new conclusion to
Edgar Allen Poe’s
“Cask of Amontillado”
The Sequel
SOBERED on the instant—the padlock had clicked when Montresor passed the chain about my waist and thus fastened me to the wall—I stood upright in the little dungeon, the blood running cold in my veins.
With maniacal laughter, he withdrew from the niche, whipped a trowel from under his robe and began to wall up the narrow opening. I knew it was not a joke, a drunken jest. I saw that his drunkenness had fallen from him. The dying flambeau fell from my nerveless hand and cast a fitful bloody glow upon the whitened, dripping walls. I shook the chain frenziedly.
“For God’s sake, Montresor!” I cried.
He replied with a horrible, mocking laugh, and, like a devil from hell, lifted his voice with mine to show that it was idle to call for help.