I Said, Herein Is the Amontiado, as for Lucasi, He Is an Ignorant.

We passed through a range of low arches and descended into a deep crypt in which the foulness of the air caused our flambeaux rather to glow than flame. The walls had been lined with human remains piled to the vault overhead, in the fashion of the great catacombs of pari. 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. It was in vain that fortunato, uplifting his dull torch, endeavored to pry into the depths of the recess its termination. I said, herein is