A man is in a room without light. He attempted to figure out his rooms shape, and ended up almost falling down a pit. Later he was drugged by the food the captors have given him. He has ended up strapped to a table with a big pendulum holding a giant blade that was slowly descending. In order to save himself, he took the beef they have allowed him to have as a last meal, and smothered his bindings in their juices, prompting the rats to eat them. He was released just before the blade would have killed him, only the walls were moving towards the centre pit. He would have fallen in but a man had grabbed his arm. That man was an officer in charge of releasing all the prisoners at the end of the Inquisition.
the seven tall candles upon the table. At first they wore the aspect of charity, and seemed white and slender angels who would save me; but then, all at once, there came a most deadly nausea over my spirit, and I felt every fibre in my frame thrill as if I had touched the wire of a galvanic battery, while the angel forms became meaningless spectres, with heads of flame, and I saw that from them there would be no help.
he heat rapidly increased, and once again I looked up, shuddering as with a fit of the ague. There had been a second change in the cell – and now the change was obviously in the form. As before, it was in vain that I, at first, endeavoured to appreciate or understand what was taking place. But not long was I left in doubt. The Inquisitorial vengeance had been hurried by my two-fold escape, and there was to be no more dallying with the King of Terrors. The room had been square. I saw that two of its iron angles were now acute – two, consequently, obtuse. The fearful difference quickly increased with a low rumbling or moaning sound. In an instant the apartment had shifted its form into that of a lozenge. Bu