What part of "The Pit and the Pendulum" did you find most suspenseful? Why?

The part of The Pit and the Pendulumthat I always find the most suspenseful is the part about the pendulum. It starts with the narrator noticing that the painting of Time on the ceiling had a pendulum instead of scythe, and then, although he is not sure, he thinks he sees the pendulum moving. At that point, the pendulum is barely moving, which makes the narrator lose interest and start to look around. Later,...

The part of The Pit and the Pendulum that I always find the most suspenseful is the part about the pendulum. It starts with the narrator noticing that the painting of Time on the ceiling had a pendulum instead of scythe, and then, although he is not sure, he thinks he sees the pendulum moving. At that point, the pendulum is barely moving, which makes the narrator lose interest and start to look around. Later, the narrator returns his gaze to the pendulum to see that the swing of the pendulum had increased in speed and width, and that the entire thing had descended a noticeable amount. He spends what he thinks could be days just watching the pendulum coming closer and closer to him, but all he can do is wait until it reaches him.

Thanks to the way Poe writes the narrator's internal reactions, the readers also feel the tension as we wait for the pendulum to finally reach the narrator. Poe drags out the experience, spending one-third of the short story describing how the pendulum brings slowly impending doom for the narrator, which is more than he spends on any other one thing. The episode with the pendulum is slow and long (in relation to the rest of the story), just as the narrator experiences the slow and long process of the pendulum gaining speed and descending toward him.