The Marble Faun Volume 1 - Page 13/130

"How dismal all this is!" said Hilda, shuddering. "I do not know why we

came here, nor why we should stay a moment longer."

"I hate it all!" cried Donatello with peculiar energy. "Dear friends,

let us hasten back into the blessed daylight!"

From the first, Donatello had shown little fancy for the expedition;

for, like most Italians, and in especial accordance with the law of his

own simple and physically happy nature, this young man had an infinite

repugnance to graves and skulls, and to all that ghastliness which the

Gothic mind loves to associate with the idea of death. He shuddered,

and looked fearfully round, drawing nearer to Miriam, whose attractive

influence alone had enticed him into that gloomy region.

"What a child you are, poor Donatello!" she observed, with the freedom

which she always used towards him. "You are afraid of ghosts!"

"Yes, signorina; terribly afraid!" said the truthful Donatello.

"I also believe in ghosts," answered Miriam, "and could tremble at them,

in a suitable place. But these sepulchres are so old, and these skulls

and white ashes so very dry, that methinks they have ceased to be

haunted. The most awful idea connected with the catacombs is their

interminable extent, and the possibility of going astray into this

labyrinth of darkness, which broods around the little glimmer of our

tapers."

"Has any one ever been lost here?" asked Kenyon of the guide.

"Surely, signor; one, no longer ago than my father's time," said the

guide; and he added, with the air of a man who believed what he was

telling, "but the first that went astray here was a pagan of old Rome,

who hid himself in order to spy out and betray the blessed saints, who

then dwelt and worshipped in these dismal places. You have heard the

story, signor? A miracle was wrought upon the accursed one; and, ever

since (for fifteen centuries at least), he has been groping in the

darkness, seeking his way out of the catacomb."

"Has he ever been seen?" asked Hilda, who had great and tremulous faith

in marvels of this kind.

"These eyes of mine never beheld him, signorina; the saints forbid!"

answered the guide. "But it is well known that he watches near parties

that come into the catacomb, especially if they be heretics, hoping to

lead some straggler astray. What this lost wretch pines for, almost as

much as for the blessed sunshine, is a companion to be miserable with

him."

"Such an intense desire for sympathy indicates something amiable in the

poor fellow, at all events," observed Kenyon.

They had now reached a larger chapel than those heretofore seen; it

was of a circular shape, and, though hewn out of the solid mass of red

sandstone, had pillars, and a carved roof, and other tokens of a regular

architectural design. Nevertheless, considered as a church, it was

exceedingly minute, being scarcely twice a man's stature in height, and

only two or three paces from wall to wall; and while their collected

torches illuminated this one small, consecrated spot, the great darkness

spread all round it, like that immenser mystery which envelops our

little life, and into which friends vanish from us, one by one. "Why,

where is Miriam?" cried Hilda. The party gazed hurriedly from face to

face, and became aware that one of their party had vanished into

the great darkness, even while they were shuddering at the remote

possibility of such a misfortune.