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
      on 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,” said he. “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 eyes 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 is 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 walls of piled
      bones, 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 Grâve. 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. “It is this,” I answered, producing a trowel from beneath the
      folds of my _roquelaire_. “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. At the most remote end of the crypt there appeared another less
      spacious. Its walls had been lined with human remains, piled to
      the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of
      Paris. Three sides of this interior crypt were still ornamented
      in this manner. From the fourth the bones had been thrown down,
      and lay promiscuously upon the earth, forming at one point a
      mound of some size. Within the wall thus exposed by the
      displacing of the bones, we perceived a still interior recess, in
      depth about four feet, in width three, in height six or seven. It
      seemed to have been constructed for no especial use in itself,
      but formed merely the interval between two of the colossal
      supports of the roof of the catacombs, and was backed by one of
      their circumscribing walls of solid granite. It was in vain that Fortunato, uplifting his dull torch,
      endeavored to pry into the depths of the recess. Its termination
      the feeble light did not enable us to see. “Proceed,” I said; “herein is the Amontillado. As for Luchesi—”

      “He is an ignoramus,” interrupted my friend, as he stepped
      unsteadily forward, while I followed immediately at his heels. In
      an instant he had reached the extremity of the niche, and finding
      his progress arrested by the rock, stood stupidly bewildered. A
      moment more and I had fettered him to the granite. In its surface
      were two iron staples, distant from each other about two feet,
      horizontally. From one of these depended a short chain, from the
      other a padlock. Throwing the links about his waist, it was but
      the work of a few seconds to secure it. He was too much astounded
      to resist. Withdrawing the key I stepped back from the recess. “Pass your hand,” I said, “over the wall; you cannot help feeling
      the nitre. Indeed it is _very_ damp. Once more let me _implore_
      you to return. No? Then I must positively leave you. But I must
      first render you all the little attentions in my power.”

      “The Amontillado!” ejaculated my friend, not yet recovered from
      his astonishment. “True,” I replied; “the Amontillado.”

      As I said these words I busied myself among the pile of bones of
      which I have before spoken. Throwing them aside, I soon uncovered
      a quantity of building stone and mortar. With these materials and
      with the aid of my trowel, I began vigorously to wall up the
      entrance of the niche.