The narrator suffers inquisitorial torture in prison. The last words he hears are the words of the death sentence. Sentenced to faint. Opening his eyes, he discovers that he is in complete darkness. Fearing that he was walled up alive, he jumps to his feet and goes forward. Realizing that he was in a rather spacious room, the narrator concludes that he did not have the worst fate. Finally he runs into a wall and recalls the horrors and traps of the Inquisition. Trying to determine the size of the camera, he begins to move along the wall, but stumbles, stretches out on the floor and, exhausted, falls into unconsciousness.
Waking up, the narrator finds a loaf of bread and a bowl of water. After the meal, the prisoner continues his research, stumbles and falls at the very edge of a deep well. Then he understands what kind of execution he is destined for - he had to fall into the well in the darkness, like many other poor fellows. However, the narrator is lucky - he stumbles very on time.
After this frightening discovery, the narrator cannot fall asleep for a long time, but finally he succeeds. Waking up, he again finds a loaf of bread and a bowl of water. Something is obviously mixed into the water, because the narrator is covered by incomprehensible drowsiness, and he again falls asleep.
Recovering, the prisoner sees that everything is illuminated by a greenish light. His cell is much smaller than he expected, and in the middle there is a deep well. The position of the prisoner is also changing. He turns out to be firmly attached to some kind of wooden frame - only his head and left hand remained free, with which he could reach the bowl. The narrator is tormented by thirst, but, to his horror, he does not find water near him. The jailers want to increase the captive's flour - in the bowl lies spiced meat.
The victim examines the ceiling of his cell and sees the image of death on it, only instead of the scythe in her hand she has a pendulum that moves. Rats appear, and the narrator with great difficulty drives them away from meat.
After some time, the storyteller again looks up and notes with horror that the pendulum has noticeably lowered, and its lower end, sharp as a razor, has the shape of a sickle. Rats seem to be waiting for the death of the captive to arrange a bloody feast, and the idea comes to the narrator's head. He smears the strap that bound him with grease from a plate. Attracted by the smell of the rat, they jump onto the body of the prisoner and are mistaken for an oiled girth. The animals gnaw through the belt when the pendulum cuts through the prisoner's clothes and passes over his chest. The narrator chases away his saviors and carefully slips out from under the moving blade. The pendulum immediately stops, rises to the ceiling and disappears. The narrator manages to avoid another painful death.
Suddenly, a change occurs in the chamber - its walls are heating up and begin to shrink,stepping closer to the prisoner. soon there was no free space in the cell, and the narrator was forced to approach the well. It seems to him that life is over. The narrator, whose clothes are already smoldering, is preparing to jump into a bottomless well, but at the very last moment he grabs his hand. This is General Lassalle. French troops entered Toledo. The Inquisition is now dominated by its enemies.
