Read the selection below from the short story "The Pit and the Pendulum" by Edgar Allan Poe and use your
knowledge of the story to answer the question that follows.
Amid the thought of the fiery destruction that impended, the idea of the coolness of the well came over my soul like
balm. I rushed to its deadly brink. I threw my straining vision below. The glare from the enkindled roof illumined its
inmost recesses. Yet, for a wild moment, did my spint refuse to comprehend the meaning of what I saw. At length it
forced-it wrestled its way into my soulit bumed itself in upon my shuddering reason. O for a voice to speak! -oh
horror-oh, any horror but this! With a shriek I rushed from the margin and buried my face in my hands-weeping
bitterly
Which torture does the passage above
being eaten alive by rats
being bumed alive
being killed by falling into a hole
being sliced open by a giant blade