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At first through the square chambers of the early Popes and the narrow passages lined with empty cells, nearest to the world outside, we kept together, and it was mainly Eusebius who discoursed of the building of the Catacombs, which he informed us had a pagan beginning.
"But our blessed early bishops said, 'Why should the devil have all the accommodations?' and when once the Church got its foot in there wasn't much room for him . But a few pagans there are here to this day in better company than they ever kept above ground," remarked Brother Eusebius.
"Can you tell them apart?" asked Mr. Dod, "the Christians and the Pagans?"
"Yes," replied that holy man, "by the measurements of the jaw-bone. The Christians, you see, were always lecturing the other fellows, so their jaw-bones grew to an awful size. Some of 'em are simply parliamentary."
"Dat," said Brother Demetrius anxiously—as nobody had laughed—"ith a joke."
"I noticed the intention," said poppa. "It's down in the guide-book that you've been 'absolved from the vow of silence'—is that correct?"
"Right you are," said Brother Eusebius. "What about it?"
"Oh, nothing—only it explains a good deal. I guess you enjoy it, don't you?"
But Brother Eusebius was bending over a cell in better preservation than most of them, and was illuminating with his candle the bones of the dweller in it. The light flickered on the skull of the Early Christian and the tonsure of the modern one and made comparisons. It also cut the darkness into solid blocks, and showed us broken bits of marble, faint stains of old frescoes, strange rough letters, and where it wavered furthest the uncertain lines of a graven cross.
"Here's one of the original inhabitants," remarked Eusebius. "He's been here all the time. I hope the ladies don't mind looking at him in his bones?"
"Thee, you can pick him up," said old Demetrius, handing a thigh-bone to momma, who shrank from the privilege. "It ith quite dry."
"It seems such a liberty," she said, "and he looks so incomplete without it. Do put it back."
"That's the way I feel," remarked Dicky, "but I don't believe he'd mind our looking at a toe-bone. Are his toe-bones all there?"
"No," replied Demetrius, "I have count another day and he ith nine only. Here ith a few."
"It is certainly a very solemn and unusual privilege," remarked Mr. Mafferton, as the toe-bones went round, "to touch the mortal remnant of an Early Christian."
"That altogether depends," said the Senator, "upon what sort of an Early Christian he was. Maybe he was a saint of the first water, and maybe he was a pillar of the church that ran a building society. Or, maybe, he was only an average sort of Early Christian like you or me, in which case he must be very uncomfortable at the idea of inspiring so much respect. How are you going to tell?"
"The gentleman is right," said Brother Eusebius, and in considering poppa's theory in its relation to the doubtful character before them nobody noticed, except me, the petty larceny, by Richard Dod, of one Early Christian toe-bone. His expression, I am glad to say, made me think he had never stolen anything before; but you couldn't imagine a more promising beginning for a career of embezzlement. As we moved on I mentioned to him that the man who would steal the toe-bone of an Early Christian, who had only nine, was capable of most crimes, at which he assured me that he hadn't such a thing about him outside of his boots, which shows how one wrong step leads to another.
We fell presently into two parties—Dicky, Mrs. Portheris, and I holding to the skirts of Brother Demetrius. Brother Demetrius knew a great deal about the Latin inscriptions and the history of Pope Damasus and the chapel of the Bishops, and how they found the body of St. Cecilia, after eight hundred years, fresh and perfect, and dressed in rich vestments embroidered in gold; but his way of imparting it seriously interfered with the value of his information, and we looked regretfully after the other party.
"Here we have de tomb of Anterus and Fabianus——"
"I think we should keep up with the rest," interrupted Mrs. Portheris.
"Oh, I too, I know all dese Catacomb—I will take you everywheres—and here, too, we have buried Entychianus."
"Where is Brother Eusebius taking the others?" asked Dicky.
"Now I tell you: he mith all de valuable ting, he is too fat and lazy; only joke, joke, joke. And here we has buried Epis—martyr. Epis he wath martyr ."
The others, with their lights and voices, came into full view where four passages met in a cubicle. "Oh," cried Isabel, catching sight of us, " do come and see Jonah and the whale. It's too funny for anything."
"And where Damathuth found here the many good thainth he——"
"We would like to see Jonah," entreated Dicky.
"Well," said Brother Demetrius crossly, "you go thee him—you catch up. I will no more. You do not like my Englis' very well. You go with fat old joke-fellow, and I return the houth. Bethide, it ith the day of my lumbago." And the venerable Demetrius, with distinct temper, turned his back on us and waddled off.
We looked at each other in consternation.
"I'm afraid we've hurt his feelings," said Dicky.
"You must go after him, Mr. Dod, and apologize," commanded Mrs. Portheris.
"Do you suppose he knows the way out?" I asked.
"It is a shame," said Dicky. "I'll go and tell him we'd rather have him than Jonah any day."
Brother Demetrius was just turning a corner. Darkness encompassed him, lying thick between us. He looked, in the light of his candle, like something of Rembrandt's suspended for a moment before us. Dicky started after him, and, presently, Mrs. Portheris and I were regarding each other with more friendliness than I would have believed possible across our flaring dips in the silence of the Catacombs.
"Poor old gentleman," I said; "I hope Mr. Dod will overtake him."
"So do I, indeed," said Mrs. Portheris. "I fear we have been very inconsiderate. But young people are always so impatient," she added, and put the blame where it belonged.
I did not retaliate with so much as a reproachful glance. Even as a censor Mrs. Portheris was so eminently companionable at the moment. But as we waited for Dicky's return neither of us spoke again. It made too much noise. Minutes passed, I don't know how many, but enough for us to look cautiously round to see if there was anything to sit on. There wasn't, so Mrs. Portheris took my arm. We were not people to lean on each other in the ordinary vicissitudes of life, and even under the circumstances I was aware that Mrs. Portheris was a great deal to support, but there was comfort in every pound of her. At last a faint light foreshadowed itself in the direction of Dicky's disappearance, and grew stronger, and was resolved into a candle and a young man, and Mr. Dod, very much paler than when he left, was with us again. Mrs. Portheris and I started apart as if scientifically impelled, and exclaimed simultaneously, "Where is Brother Demetrius?"
"Nowhere in this graveyard," said Dicky. "He's well upstairs by this time. Must have taken a short cut. I lost sight of him in about two seconds."
"That was very careless of you, Mr. Dod," said Mrs. Portheris, "very careless indeed. Now we have no option, I suppose, but to rejoin the others; and where are they?"
They were certainly not where they had been. Not a trace nor an echo—not a trace nor an echo—of anything, only parallelograms of darkness in every direction, and our little circle of light flickering on the tombs of Anterus, and Fabianus, and Entychianus, and Epis—martyr—and we three within it, looking at each other.
"If you don't mind," said Dicky, "I would rather not go after them. I think it's a waste of time. Personally I am quite contented to have rejoined you. At one time I thought I shouldn't be able to, and the idea was trying."
"We wouldn't dream of letting you go again," said Mrs. Portheris and I simultaneously. "But," continued Mrs. Portheris, "we will all go in search of the others. They can't be very far away. There is nothing so alarming as standing still."
We proceeded along the passage in the direction of our last glimpse of our friends and relatives, passing a number of most interesting inscriptions, which we felt we had not time to pause and decipher, and came presently to a divergence which none of us could remember. Half of the passage went down three steps, and turned off to the left under an arch, and the other half climbed two, and immediately lost itself in blackness of darkness. In our hesitation Dicky suddenly stooped to a trace of pink in the stone leading upward, and picked it up—three rose petals.
"That settles it," he exclaimed. "Isa—Miss Portheris was wearing a rose. I gave it to her myself."
"Did you, indeed," said Isabel's mamma coldly. "My dear child, how anxious she will be!"
"Oh, I should think not," I said hopefully. "I am sure she can trust Mr. Dod to take care of himself—and of us, too, for the matter of that."
"Mr. Dod!" exclaimed Mrs. Portheris with indignation. "My poor child's anxiety will be for her mother."
And we let it go at that. But Dicky put the rose petals in his pocket with the toe-bone, and hopefully remarked that there would be no difficulty about finding her now. I mentioned that I had parents also, at that moment, lost in the Catacombs, but he did not apologize.
The midnight of the place, as we walked on, seemed to deepen, and its silence to grow more profound. The tombs passed us in solemn grey ranges, one above the other—the long tombs of the grown-up people, and the shorter ones of the children, and the very little ones of the babies. The air held a concentrated dolor of funerals sixteen centuries old, and the four dim stone walls seemed to have crept closer together. "I think I will take your arm, Mr. Dod," said Mrs. Portheris, and "I think I will take your other arm, Mr. Dod," said I.
"Thank you," replied Dicky, "I should be glad of both of yours," which may look ambiguous now, but we quite understood it at the time. It made rather uncomfortable walking in places, but against that overwhelming majority of the dead it was comforting to feel ourselves a living unit. We stumbled on, taking only the most obvious turnings, and presently the passage widened into another little square chamber. "More bishops!" groaned Dicky, holding up his candle.
"Perhaps," I replied triumphantly, "but Jonah, anyway," and I pointed him out on the wall, in two shades of brown, a good deal faded, being precipitated into the jaws of a green whale with paws and horns and a smile, also a curled body and a three-forked tail. The wicked deed had two accomplices only, who had apparently stopped rowing to do it. Underneath was a companion sketch of the restitution of Jonah, in perfect order, by the whale, which had, nevertheless, grown considerably stouter in the interval, while an amiable stranger reclined in an arbor, with his hand under his head, and looked on.
"As a child your intelligence promised well," said Dicky; "that is Jonah, though not of the Revised Version. I don't think Bible stories ought to be illustrated, do you, Mrs. Portheris? It has such a bad effect on the imagination."
"We can talk of that at another time, Mr. Dod. At present I wish to be restored to my daughter. Let us push on at once. And please explain how it is that we have had to walk so far to get to this place, which was only a few yards from where we were standing when Brother Demetrius left us!" Mrs. Portheris's words were commanding, but her tone was the tone of supplication.
"I'm afraid I can't," said Dicky, "but for that very reason I think we had better stay where we are. They are pretty sure to look for us here."
"I cannot possibly wait to be looked for. I must be restored to my daughter! You must make an effort, Mr. Dod. And, now that I think of it, I have left the key of our boxes in the drawer of the dressing-table, and the key of that is in it, and the housemaid has the key of the room. It is absolutely necessary that I should go back to the hotel at once."
"My dear lady," said Dicky, "don't you realize that we are lost?"
"Lost! Impossible! Shout , Mr. Dod!"
Dicky shouted, and all the Early Christians answered him. There are said to be seven millions. Mrs. Portheris grasped his arm convulsively.
"Don't do that again," she said, "on any account. Let us go on!"
"Much better not," protested Dicky.
"On! on!" commanded Mrs. Portheris. There was no alternative. We put Dicky in the middle again, and cautiously stepped out. A round of blue paper under our chaperone's arm caught the eye of Mr. Dod. "What luck!" he exclaimed, "you have brought the liqueur with you, Mrs. Portheris. I think we'd better all have some, if you don't mind. I've been in warmer cemeteries."
As she undid the bottle, Mrs. Portheris declared that she already felt the preliminary ache of influenza. She exhorted us to copious draughts, but it was much too nasty for more than a sip, though warming to a degree.
"Better take very little at a time," Dicky suggested, but Mrs. Portheris reaffirmed her faith in the virtues of eucalyptus, and with such majesty as was compatible with the neck of the bottle, drank deeply. Then we stumbled on. Presently Mrs. Portheris yawned widely twice, thrice, and again. "I beg your pardon," said she, "I don't seem able to help it."
"It's the example of these gaping sepulchres," Dicky replied. "Don't apologize."
The passages grew narrower and more complex, the tombs more irregular. We came to one that partly blocked the path, tilted against the main wall like a separate sarcophagus, though it was really part of the solid rock. Looking back, a wall seemed to have risen behind us; it was a distinctly perplexing moment, hard upon the nerves. The tomb was empty, except for a few bones that might have been anything huddled at the bottom, and Mrs. Portheris sat down on the lower end of it. "I really do not feel able to go any further," she said; "the ascent is so perpendicular."
I was going to protest that the place was as level as a street, but Dicky forestalled me. "Eucalyptus," he said soothingly, "often has that effect."
"We are lost," continued Mrs. Portheris lugubriously, "in the Catacombs. We may as well make up our minds to it. We came here this morning at ten o'clock, and I should think, I should think—thish mus' be minnight on the following day."
"My watch has run down," said Dicky, "but you are probably quite right, Mrs. Portheris."
"It is doubtful," Mrs. Portheris went on, pulling herself together, "whether we are ever found. There are nine hundred miles of Catacombs. Unless we become cannibals we are likely to die of starvation. If we do become cannibals, Mr. Dod," she added, sternly endeavouring to look Dicky in the eye, "I hope you will remember what ish due to ladies."
"I will offer myself up gladly," said he, and I could not help reflecting upon the comfort of a third party with a sense of humour under the circumstances.
"Thass right," said Mrs. Portheris, nodding approvingly, and much oftener than was necessary. "Though there isn't much on you—you won't go very far." Then after a moment of gloomy reflection she blew out her candle, and, before I could prevent it, mine also. Dicky hastily put his out of reach.
"Three candles at once," she said virtuously, "in a room of this size! It is wicked extravagance, neither more nor less."
I assure you you would have laughed, even in the Catacombs, and Dicky and I mutually approached the borders of hysteria in our misplaced mirth. Mrs. Portheris smiled in unison somewhat foolishly, and we saw that slumber was overtaking her. Gradually and unconsciously she slipped down and back, and presently rested comfortably in the sepulchre of her selection, sound asleep.
"She is right in it," said Dicky, holding up his candle. "She's a lulu," he added disgustedly, "with her eucalyptus."
This was disrespectful, but consider the annoyance of losing a third of our forces against seven million Early Christian ghosts. We sat down, Dicky and I, with our backs against the tomb of Mrs. Portheris, and when Dicky suggested that I might like him to hold my hand for a little while I made no objection whatever. We decided that the immediate prospect, though uncomfortable, was not alarming, that we had been wandering about for possibly an hour, judging by the dwindling of Dicky's candle, and that search must be made for us as soon as ever the others went above ground and heard from Brother Demetrius the tale of our abandonment. I said that if I knew anything about momma's capacity for underground walking, the other party would have gone up long ago, and that search for us was, therefore, in all likelihood, proceeding now, though perhaps it would be wiser, in case we might want them, to burn only one candle at a time. We had only to listen intently and we would hear the voices of the searchers. We did listen, but all that we heard was a faint far distant moan, which Dicky tried to make me believe was the wind in a ventilating shaft. We could also hear a prolonged thumping very close to us, but that we could each account for personally. And nothing more.
"Dicky," said I after a time, "if it weren't for the candle I believe I should be frightened."
"It's about the most parsimonious style of candle I've ever seen," replied Dicky, "but it would give a little more light if it were trimmed." And he opened his pocket-knife.
"Be very careful," I begged, and Dicky said "Rather!"
"Did you ever notice," he asked, "that you can touch flame all right if you are only quick enough? Now, see me take the top off that candle." If Dicky had a fault it was a tendency to boastfulness. He took the lighted wick between his thumb and his knife-blade, and skilfully scooped the top off. It blazed for two seconds on the edge of the blade—just long enough to show us that all the flame had come with it. Then it went out, and in the darkness at my side I heard a scuffling among waistcoat pockets, and a groan.
"No matches?" I asked in despair.
"Left 'em in my light overcoat pockets, Mamie. I'm a bigger ass than—than Mafferton."
"You are," I said with decision. "No Englishman goes anywhere without his light overcoat. What have you done with yours?"
"Left it in the carriage," replied Dick humbly.
"That shows," said I bitterly, "how little you have learned in England. Propriety in connection with you is evidently like water and a duck's back. An intelligent person would have acquired the light overcoat principle in three days, and never have gone out without it afterward."
"Oh, go on!" replied Dick fiercely. "Go on. I don't mind. I'm not so stuck on myself as I was. But if we've got to die together you might as well forgive me. You'll have to do it at the last moment, you know."
"I suppose you have begun to review your past life," I said grimly, "and that's why you are using so much American slang."
Then, as Dicky was again holding my hands, I maintained a dignified silence. You cannot possibly quarrel with a person who is holding your hand, no matter how you feel.
"There's only one thing that consoles me in connection with those matches," Dicky mentioned after a time. "They were French ones."
"I don't know what that has to do with it," I said.
"That's because you don't smoke," Dicky replied. And I had not the heart to pursue the inquiry. Time went on, black and silent, as it had been doing down there for sixteen centuries. We stopped arguing about why they didn't come to look for us, each privately wondering if it was possible that we had strayed too ingeniously ever to be found. We talked of many things to try to keep up our spirits, the conviction of the St. James's Gazette that American young ladies live largely upon chewing-gum, and other topics far removed from our surroundings, but the effort was not altogether successful. Dicky had just permitted himself to make a reference to his mother in Chicago when a sound behind us made us both start violently, and then cheered us immensely—a snore from Mrs. Portheris within the tomb. It was not, happily, a single accidental snore, but the forerunner of a regular series, and we hung upon them as they issued, comforted and supported. We were vaguely aware that we could have no better defence against disembodied Early Christians, when, in the course of an hour, Mrs. Portheris sat up suddenly among the bones of the original occupant and asked what time it was. We felt a pang of regret at losing it.
After the first moment or two that lady realized the situation completely. "I suppose," she said, "we have been down here about two days. I am quite faint with hunger. I have often read that candles, under these terrible circumstances, are sustaining. What a good thing we have got the candles."
Dicky squeezed my hand nervously, but our chaperone had slept off the eucalyptus and had no longer one cannibal thought.
"I don't think it is time for candles yet," he said reassuringly. "You have been asleep, you know, Mrs. Portheris."
"If you have eaten them already, I consider that you have taken an unfair advantage, a very unfair advantage."
"Here is mine!" exclaimed Dicky nobly. "I hope I can deny myself, Mrs. Portheris, to that extent."
"And mine," I echoed; "but really, Mrs. Portheris——"
Another pressure of Dicky's hand reminded me—I am ashamed to confess it—that if Mrs. Portheris was bent upon the unnecessary consumption of Roman tallow there was nothing in her past treatment of either of us to induce us to prevent her. The dictates of humanity, I know, should have influenced us otherwise, in connection with tallow, but they seemed for the moment to have faded as completely out of our bosoms as they did out of the early Roman persecutors! It seemed to me that all my country's wrongs at the hands of Mrs. Portheris rose up and clamoured to be avenged, and Dicky told me afterward that he felt just the same way.
"Then I have done you an injustice," she continued; "I apologize, I am sure, and I find that I have my own candle, thank you. It is adhering to the side of my bonnet."
We were perfectly silent.
"Perhaps I ought to try and wait a little longer," Mrs. Portheris hesitated, "but I feel such a sinking, and I assure you I have fallen away. My garments are quite loose."
"Of course it depends," said Dicky scientifically, "upon the amount of carbon the system has in reserve. Personally I think I can hold out a little longer. I had an excellent breakfast this m——, the day we came here. But if I felt a sinking——"
" Waugh! " said Mrs. Portheris.
"Have you—have you begun? " I exclaimed in agony, while Dicky shook in silence.
"I have," replied Mrs. Portheris hurriedly; "where—where is the eucalyptus? Ah! I have it!"
" Ben-en-euh! It is nutritive, I am sure, but it requires a cordial."
The darkness for some reason seemed a little less black and the silence less oppressive.
"I have only eaten about three inches," remarked Mrs. Portheris presently. Dicky and I were incapable of conversation—"but I—but I cannot go on at present. It is really not nice."
"An overdone flavour, hasn't it?" asked Dicky, between gasps.
"Very much so! Horribly! But the eucalyptus will, I hope, enable me to extract some benefit from it. I think I'll lie down again." And we heard the sound of a cork restored to its bottle as Mrs. Portheris returned to the tomb. It was quite half an hour before she woke up, declaring that a whole night had passed and that she was more famished than ever. "But," she added, "I feel it impossible to go on with the candle. There is something about the wick——"
"I know," said Dicky sympathetically, "unless you are born in Greenland, you cannot really enjoy them. There is an alternative, Mrs. Portheris, but I didn't like to mention it——"
"I know," she replied, "shoe leather. I have read of that, too, and I think it would be an improvement. Have you got a pocket-knife, Mr. Dod?"
Dicky produced it without a pang and we heard the rapid sound of an unbuttoning shoe. "I had these made to order at two guineas, in the Burlington Arcade," said Mrs. Portheris regretfully.
"Then," said Dicky gravely, groping to hand her the knife, "they will be of good kid, and probably tender."
"I hope so, indeed," said Mrs. Portheris; "we must all have some. Will you—will you carve , Mr. Dod?"
I remembered with a pang how punctilious they were in England about asking gentlemen to perform this duty, and I received one more impression of the permanence of British ideas of propriety. But Dicky declined; said he couldn't undertake it—for a party, and that Mrs. Portheris must please help herself and never mind him, he would take anything there was, a little later, with great hospitality. However, she insisted, and my portion, I know, was a generous one, a slice off the ankle. Mrs. Portheris begged us to begin; she said it was so cheerless eating by one's self, and made her feel quite greedy.
"Really," she said, "it is much better than candle—a little difficult to masticate perhaps, but, if I do say it myself, quite a tolerable flavour. If I only hadn't used that abominable French polish this morning. What do you think, Mr. Dod?"
"I think," said Dicky, jumping suddenly to his feet, while my heart stood still with anticipation, "that if there's enough of that shoe left, you had better put it on again, for I hear people calling us," and then, making a trumpet with his hands, Dicky shouted till all the Roman skeletons sufficiently intact turned to listen. But this time the answer came back from their descendants, running with a flash of lanterns.
I will skip the scene of our reunion, because I am not good at matters which are moving, and we were all excessively moved. It is necessary to explain, however, that Brother Demetrius, when he went above ground, felt his lumbago so acutely that he retired to bed, and was therefore not visible when the others came up. As we had planned beforehand, the Senator decided to go on to the Jewish Catacombs, taking it for granted that we would follow, while Brother Eusebius, when he found Demetrius in bed, also took it for granted that we had gone on ahead. He did not inquire, he said, because the virtue of taciturnity being denied to them in the exercise of their business, they always diligently cultivated it in private. My own conviction was that they were not on speaking terms. Our friends and relatives, after looking at the Jewish Catacombs, had driven back to the hotel, and only began to feel anxious at tea time, as they knew the English refreshment-rooms were closed for the season, like everything else, and Isabel asserted with tears that if her mother was above ground she would not miss her tea. So they all drove back to the Catacombs, and effected our rescue after we had been immured for exactly seven hours. I wish to add, to the credit of Mr. Richard Dod, that he has never yet breathed a syllable to anybody about the manner in which Mrs. Portheris sustained nature during our imprisonment, although he must often have been strongly tempted to do so. And neither have I—until now.