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The Cask of Amontillado
Edgar Allan Poe

Fortunato had hurt me in other ways a thousand times and I had suffered in quiet, but when he begun to call me a weak fool and to laugh at my proud name, I promised that I would have my revenge. You, who so well understand my soul, will not suppose, however, that I spoke of this. I would take my pay, but I would act only with the greatest care. I must not suffer for taking my revenge. A wrong is not made right in that manner. And also wrong would not bee righted if Fortunato did not know the Payment he was making and who was forcing him to make it.

I gave him no cause to doubt me. I continued to smile in his facee, and did not see that my smile now was at the thought of what I planned for him.

He had a weakness this Fortunato although he was a strong man, a man to be feared. He was proud of himself as a judge of wine. In this I was much like him; I knew old wines myself, and I bought them largery whenever I could.

It was about dark, one evening during the carnival season, that I met my friend. He spoke to me with more than his usual warmth, for he had been drinking much. He was in carnival dress of many colors and there were bells on the covering on his head. I was so pleased to see him that I thought I should never stop shaking his hand.

I said to him: "My dear Fortunato, I am glad to have met you. I have received a cask of what is said to be Amontillado. And I have my doubts."

"What?" said he. "Amontillado? A cask? Not possible! And in the middle of the carnival!"

"I have my doubts," I replied. "And I was fool enough to pay the full Amontillado price without first talking to you about the matter. "You were not to be found."

"Amontillado!"

"I have my doubts. And I must learn the truth."

"Amontillado!"

"Because you are going to the carnival, I am on my way to Luchresi. If anyone understand wine it is he. He will tell me ..."

"Luchresi cannot tell one wine from another."

"And yet some fools say that his taste is the equal of yours.

"Come, let us go."

"Where?"

"To your vaults."
"My friend, no. You are on your way to the carnival, and also I can see you are not well. The vaults are very cold."

"Let us go, nevertheless. I am well enough. Amontillado! Someone has made a fool of you. And as for Luchresi, ho cannot tell Amontillado from any other wine."

As he spoke, Fortunato took my arm. Putting a black mask over my face and pulling my cloak close about me, I allowed him to hurry me to my pallace
There were no servants at home. I had told them that I should not return until the morning, and I commanded them not to leave the house. These commands were enough, I knew, to make sure that they would all leave to join in the delights of the carnival as soon as my back was turned.

From their place on the wall I took two brightly burning lights, giving one to Fortunato, and I led him through many rooms to the wide doorway that opened into vaults. Asking him to take care as he followed, I went down before him. We came at length to teh bottom of the steps, and stood together upon the earthen floor of the last resting place for the dead of the Montresor family.

My friend's feet were not sure, because of the wine he had been drinking, and I could hear the bells on his cap as he stood beside me.

"The cask," he said.

"It is further on," said I. I looked into his eyes, glassy with wine. "But you are not well. We must guard your health. You are rich and loved. You are happy, as oncee I was. We will go back. There is Luchresi ...."

"It is nothing," he said. "I shall not die of this illness."

"True-true," I replied. "But you should use every care." I took a bottle from those that lay near and broke it off at the neck. "Wine will warm us against the cold."

He raised it to his lips, with an evil look at me from the corner of his eyes. "I drink, he said, "to the dead who lie sleeping around us."

"And I drink to your long life."

He took my arm and we went on.

"These vaults," he said, "are very large."

"The Montresors," I replied, "were large and powerful family, and a proud one."

The wine warmed us. I could see it shining in his eyes and I could hear it in the sound of the bells. Going deeper and deeper into the vaults, we passed between long walls where the bones of the dead lay placed on bones, with cask of wine set there among them. Now water fell drops from above.

I stopped again. "We are below the river's bed. Water runs down along the bones. Come we will go back. Your health ...."

"Let us go on," he said. "But first another drink of wine."

I broke the neck of another bottle, and he drank it all, and laughed.

We passed on and down, and down again, arriving at last at the deepest vault. Our lights burned low and nearly died in the thickness of the air.

At the far end of this vault there appeared a smaller room. Against three of its walls were human bones, and the walls themselves could not be seen. From the fourth wall the bones had been thrown down, and lay upon the earth. Through an opening in this wall we could see another room beyond. It was so dark that our weak lights could show us little of it.

"Go forward," I said. "In there is the Amontillado. As for Luchresi ..."

"He knows nothing at all," said my friend, as he stepped forward, while I followed.

In a moment he had reached the back wall, for this room was no more than four feet deep. Finding himself stopped, he stood wondering what had happened. He was taken too much by surprise to fight against me. A moment more and I had made him fast to the wall of rock with an iron chain. I stepped back.

"Put your hand," I said, "on the wall. You cannot help feeling how the water runs over it. Once more let me ask you to return. No? Then I must leave you. But first I must do what little favors are within my power."

"The Amontillado!" cried my friend, not yet understanding.

"True," I replied; "the Amontillado."

As I said these words I busied myself among the bones of which I have spoken. Throwing them aside, I found the materials I had placed there, and I set to work to wall up the opening into the small room.

I had little more than begun when I discovered that Fortunato no longer felt the warm strength of all the wine he had taken. A low cry came from him. It was not the cry of a man full of drink. There was then a long quiet. I worked on: and then I heard the wild shaking of the chain. This continued several minutes, during which, so that I might listen with more pleasure, I stopped my work and sat down upon the bones. When at last there was quiet again, I returned to my labor. The wall was now growing high. I took a light and held it where it would shine upon the figure within.
Loud cries, one after another, breaking suddenly from the mouth of the chained man, seemed to throw me back. For a moment I trembled. But I placed my hand upon the rock, and felt its strength. I returned to my wall; I replied to the cries with cries louder than his. He grew quiet.

It was now the middle of the night and my work was nearly done. One heavy stone remained to be fitted into its position. But now there came from within a low laugh that made the hair rise upon my head. It was followed by a voice that I hardly knew as that of Fortunato. The voice said-

"We will have many a rich laugh about this-over our wine."

"The Amontillado!" I said.

He laughed again. "Yes, the Amontillado. But is it not getting late? Will they not be awaiting us, the Lady Fortunato and the others? Let us be gone."

"Yes," I said, "let us be gone."

"For the love of God, Montresor!"

"Yes," I said, "for the love of God!"

But to this words came no reply. I called aloud-
"Fortunato!"

Na answer. I called again-

"Fortunato!"

No answer. I put a light through the opening and let it fall within. In return came only the sound of bells. My heart grew sick; it was the cold of the vaults that made it so. I hurried to make an end of my labor. I forced the last stone into its position. Against the new wall I laid the old wall-covering of bones. For the half of a century no human hand has touched them. May he rest in peace!