I had been deceived, too, in respect to the shape of the enclosure.  In feeling my way I had found many angles, and thus deduced an idea of great irregularity; so potent is the effect of total darkness upon one arousing from lethargy or sleep!  The angles were simply those of a few slight depressions, or niches, at odd intervals.  The general shape of the prison was square.  What I had taken for masonry seemed now to be iron, or some other metal, in huge plates, whose sutures or joints occasioned the depression.  The entire surface of this metallic enclosure was rudely daubed in all the hideous and repulsive devices to which the charnel superstition of the monks has given rise.  The figures of fiends in aspects of menace, with skeleton forms, and other more really fearful images, overspread and disfigured the walls.  I observed that the outlines of these monstrosities were sufficiently distinct, but that the colors seemed faded and blurred, as if from the effects of a damp atmosphere.  I now noticed the floor, too, which was of stone.  In the centre yawned the circular pit from whose jaws I had escaped; but it was the only one in the dungeon.

All this I saw indistinctly and by much effort:  for my personal condition had been greatly changed during slumber.  I now lay upon my back, and at full length, on a species of low framework of wood.  To this I was securely bound by a long strap resembling a surcingle.  It passed in many convolutions about my limbs and body, leaving at liberty only my head, and my left arm to such extent that I could, by dint of much exertion, supply myself with food from an earthen dish which lay by my side on the floor.  I saw, to my horror, that the pitcher had been removed.  I say to my horror; for I was consumed with intolerable thirst.  This thirst it appeared to be the design of my persecutors to stimulate:  for the food in the dish was meat pungently seasoned.

Looking upward, I surveyed the ceiling of my prison.  It was some thirty or forty feet overhead, and constructed much as the side walls.  In one of its panels a very singular figure riveted my whole attention.  It was the painted figure of Time as he is commonly represented, save that, in lieu of a scythe, he held what, at a casual glance, I supposed to be the pictured image of a huge pendulum such as we see on antique clocks.  There was something, however, in the appearance of this machine which caused me to regard it more attentively.  While I gazed directly upward at it (for its position was immediately over my own) I fancied that I saw it in motion.  In an instant afterward the fancy was confirmed.  Its sweep was brief, and of course slow.  I watched it for some minutes, somewhat in fear, but more in wonder.  Wearied at length with observing its dull movement, I turned my eyes upon the other objects in the cell.

A slight noise attracted my notice, and, looking to the floor, I saw several enormous rats traversing it.  They had issued from the well, which lay just within view to my right.  Even then, while I gazed, they came up in troops, hurriedly, with ravenous eyes, allured by the scent of the meat.  From this it required much effort and attention to scare them away.