_CHAPTER VIII._
The steps were abrupt and narrow; but in a few minutes our feet becameaccustomed to them, and we descended rapidly. After we had done so forsome time, we found ourselves in a low chamber of oblong form, in themidst of which an iron stake was fixed into the floor, having chains ofponderous workmanship attached to its centre, and over against it, anarrow chair of the same metal, it also immoveable. I asked Athanasia torepose herself here for a moment; for it was evident that the tumultuousevening had much worn out her strength. But she said, shuddering, "No, nothere, Valerius; I never saw this place before, but the aspect of it recalsto me fearful stories. Here, wo is me, many a poor wretch has expiatedoffences against the dignity of the shrine, and the servants of its Demon.My father knows, I doubt not, some humble Christian roof, beneath which wemay be safe until the first search be over. Let us breathe at least theopen air, and He who has hitherto helped will not desert us."
"No, my children," said Aurelius; "let us not linger here. Christianroofs, indeed, are known to me, both humble and lofty; but how to know howfar suspicion may already have extended?--or why should we run any needlessrisk of bringing others into peril, having by God's grace escapedourselves, when all hope as to this life had been utterly taken away? Letus quit these foul precincts--let us quit them speedily--but let us notrashly be seen in the busy city. There is a place known to me, (andAthanasia also has visited it heretofore,) where safety, I think, may beexpected, and where, if danger do come, it shall find no unnecessaryvictim. Let us hasten to the Esquiline."
"Thanks, father!" said Athanasia; "there no one will seek us: there bestshall our thanksgivings and our prayers be offered. We will rest by thesepulchre of our friend, and Valerius will go into the city, and procurewhat things are needful."
We began the descent of another flight of steps, beyond the dark chamber.This terminated at length in a door, the bolts of which being withdrawn,we found ourselves beneath the sky of night, at the extremity of one ofthe wooded walks that skirt the southern base of the Palatine--the remainsof the Assyrian magnificence which had once connected the Golden House ofNero with the more modest structures of his predecessors. I wrappedAthanasia in my cloak, and walked beside her in my tunic; and Aureliusconducted us by many windings, avoiding as far as was possible the glareof the Suburra, all round about the edge of the city, to the gardens whichhang over the wall by the great Esquiline Gate.
"Is it here," said I, when he paused--"is it in the midst of this splendourthat you hope to find a safe obscurity?"
"Have patience," replied the old man; "you are a stranger:--and yet youspeak what I should have heard without surprise from many that have spentall their days in Rome. Few, indeed, ever think of entering a region whichis almost as extensive as the city itself, and none, I think, areacquainted with all its labyrinths."
So saying, the priest led the way into one of the groves. Its trees formeda dense canopy overhead; nor could we pass without difficulty among theclose-creeping undergrowth. At length we reached the centre of the widethicket, and found a small space of soil comparatively bare. The light ofmoon and star plunged down there among the surrounding blackness ofboughs, as into some deep well, and shewed the entrance of a naturalgrotto, which had, indeed, all the appearance of oblivion and utterdesertedness. "Confess," said he, "that I did not deceive you. But thereis no hurry now; let me taste once more the water of this forgottenspring."
I had not observed a small fountain hard by the mouth of the grotto,which, in former days, had evidently been much cared for, although nowalmost all its surface was covered with leaves. The marble margin sheweddim with moss; nor had a statue just within the entrance of the grotescaped this desolation. Damp herbage obscured its recumbent limbs, andthe Parian stone had lost its brightness. "You can scarcely see where theinscription was," said Aurelius, "for the letters are filled up oreffaced; but I remember when many admired it, and I can still repeat thelines--
'Nymph of the grot, these sacred springs I keep, And to the murmur of these waters sleep; Ah! spare my slumbers, gently tread the cave, And drink in silence, or in silence lave.'(4)
Little did they, who graved this command, conjecture how well it was to beobeyed. But there should be another inscription.--Ay, here it is," said he,stepping on a long flat piece of marble among the weeds. I was advancingto examine the stone, but the old man stopped me:--"What avails it to spellout the record? Do you remember the story of Asinius? It was within thisvery cavern that the man was butchered;(5) and now you see both he and hismonument are alike sinking into forgetfulness. I believe, however, themonument itself must bear the blame in part; for I have heard my fathersay that he had been told this was a favourite fountain until thatslaughter."
Athanasia meantime had sat down by the grotto, and was laving her foreheadwith the water of the solitary fountain. Aurelius, too, dipped his handsin the well, and tasted of the water, and then turning to me, he said,with a grave smile, "Valerius, methinks you are religious in your regardfor the slumbers of the nymph." He whispered something into the ear ofAthanasia, and received an answer from her in the same tone, ere heproceeded:--"Draw near--fear not that I shall do any thing rashly--we owe allthings to your love--we know we do; but speak plainly.--Do you indeed desireto be admitted into the fellowship of the true Faith? Let not the symbolof regeneration be applied hastily. Without doubt, great were my joy mightmy hands be honoured to shed the blessed water of baptism upon the brow ofdear Valerius."
"Caius," said Athanasia, "I know God has touched your heart; why shouldthis be delayed any longer? You have shared the perils of the faithful.Partake with them in good as in evil. Hesitate no longer; God will perfectwhat hath been so begun."
"Dearest friends!" said I, "if I hesitate, it is only because I doubt if Iam yet worthy. Surely I believe that this is the right faith, and thatthere is no God but He whom you worship."
"Acceptable is humility in the sight of Heaven," said the priest; and herose up from the place where he had been sitting, and began, standing bythe margin of the well, to pour out words of thanksgiving andsupplication, such as I have never heard equalled by any lips but his. Thedeep calm voice of the holy man sounded both sweet and awful in thebreathless air of midnight. The tall black trees stood all around, like awall, cutting us off from the world, and from the thoughts of the world;and the moon, steady in the serene sky, seemed to shower down light andbeauty upon nothing in all the wide earth, but that little guarded spaceof our seclusion. I stepped into the cool water of the fountain. The oldman stooped over me, and sprinkled the drops upon my forehead, and theappointed words were repeated. Aurelius kissed my brow, as I came forthfrom the water, and Athanasia also drew slowly near, and then hastily shepressed my forehead with trembling lips.
We sate down together by the lonely well; and we sate in silence, for Icould not be without many thoughts partaken by none but myself, at themoment when I had thus, in the face of God and man, abjured the faith ofall my fathers, and passed into the communion of the despised andpersecuted Few; nor did either the priest or Athanasia essay to disturb mymeditations.
There were moments (for I must not conceal from you my weakness) in whichI could scarcely help suspecting that I had done something that was wrong.I thought of my far distant mother; and I could not reflect without painupon the feelings with which I had every reason to suppose that she, kindas she was, and merciful in all things, would have contemplated the scenewhich had passed. I thought of my dead parent too; and that was yet moreserious and awful. The conviction of my own mind, in obedience to which Ihad acted, relieved me, however, from any feelings of self-reproach.--Myfather is dead, said I to myself--He died in ignorance, and he has not beenjudged according to the light, which never shone upon him. But now--Oh,yes! it must be so--the darkness has passed from before his eyes; and, ifthe spirits of the departed ever visit, in the dim hours of silence, thosewho were dear to them upon this earth, surely his venerable shade stood bysmiling while the foreh
ead of his son was laved with these blessed waters.
Meantime, minutes--hours, perhaps, glided away, while troubled, and solemn,and tender thoughts thus occupied by turns my bosom. The old priest sateby me, his arms folded on his breast, gazing upwards upon the spangledglories of the firmament. Athanasia was on the other side, close by thestatue of the Sleeping Naiad. From time to time, she too would fix hereyes for a moment upon the untroubled beauty of the moon; and then,stooping over the brink of the fountain, once and again I saw its calmdark waters rippled beneath her by the dropping of a tear.
"My children," said, at length, Aurelius, "methinks more sadness isamongst us than might suit the remembrance of what Providence has done forus, since the sun that went down upon fear and sorrow is about to riseupon many fair hopes. I am old; the world lies behind me, save a remnant Iknow not how brief. It lies all before you, and you have a light wherebyto look upon it, which my early day wanted. I trust that soon, very soon,ye shall both be far from this city--I say both, for I know well, go whereye may, ye will go together. As for me, my lot is cast here, and here Iwill remain. Caius, you must leave us betimes--you must return into thecity, and consult with your friends and hers, how best Athanasia may beconveyed safely beyond the bounds of Italy. Caesar, indeed, rules everywhere; but at a distance from Rome suspicion is, at least, less watchful;and there is no precept given by which ye are bound to seek unnecessaryperils."
"Aurelius," said I--"dear father, think not but that I have already beenconsidering all these things anxiously. As soon as I have seen you safelyplaced within the retreat of which you have spoken, I shall hasten toLicinius, my kinsman, who already, indeed, must be feeling no smallanxiety from my absence. I shall speak with him, and with both theSempronii. My own errand to the capital I value as nothing, and I shall beready on the instant, if Athanasia herself will consent to partake myvoyage."
"Yes, Caius," said the father--"this child of God will be your wife, and yewill both serve the Lord many days, amidst the quiet valleys of your faroff island.--Nay, daughter, do not weep, for these are not common days, andyou must follow without fear the path which God's providence points out.Before ye go, my children, I myself shall join your hands in the name ofour God."
Athanasia heard his words, and saw me gaze upon his face, but she made noreply, except by the tears which Aurelius rebuked, and a timid, yet graveand serious pressure, with which she, when he had made an end of speaking,returned the fervid pressure of my hand upon hers.
"Children," said the old man, "there is no need of words when hearts areopen--the tears that ye have shed together are the best earnest of the vowsthat ye shall ere long, I trust, pronounce. Yet, let no rashness attendyour steps. The dawn must now be near, and Athanasia and I had betterretire into our protecting covert. Valerius will leave us, and return ateventide. Till then, fasting and praying, we shall give thanks for ourdeliverance, and ask the aid that alone is precious for the time that yetremains."
I had, fortunately, brought all the way with me the lamp which lighted oursteps down the mysterious staircase, from the shrine of Apollo. Somelittle oil still remained within it, and Aurelius soon struck a light,and, taking it in his hand, began to enter before us the dark cavern, bythe mouth of which we had all this while been sitting. You, perhaps, havenever heard of those strange excavations, the whole extent of which hasprobably never been known to any one person, but which appear, indeed, asthe priest had said, to be almost co-extensive with the great city beneathwhich they are placed. For what purpose they were at first dug, is asubject which has long exercised the conjectures of those fond ofpenetrating into the origin of things, and the customs of antiquity. Bysome it is supposed, that in such caverns, winding far away into unseenrecesses, the first rude inhabitants of Italy, like the Troglodytes ofUpper Egypt and Ethiopia, had fixed their miserable abodes. Others assert,that they owe their origin merely to the elder builders of the visibleRome, who, to avoid marring the surface of the earth, were contented tobring their materials of sand, clay, and stone, from these subterraneouslabyrinths, which so grew with the progress of diligence, and with theextension of the city itself. Perhaps both conjectures may have somefoundation in truth; but be that as it may, there is no question, that, insucceeding times, these catacombs had been widened and extended, to serveas places of burial for the mortal remains of the poor citizens. And nowis it to be wondered at, that here, in regions so obscure and dismal, thepersecuted adherents of the Faith should have frequently sought not onlyresting-places for the bodies of their dead, but even shelter forthemselves, amidst the terror of those relentless days? Hither, more thanonce, the aged priest said, he had fled to escape the pursuit of hisenemies--here once more he hoped the shield of safety would lie over hisperil--here, at last, by whatever death he should die, his brethren hadpromised to lay his bones in the earth, beside Tisias of Antioch, and manymore that, in the bloody times of Nero and Domitian, had already, in thesight of all that heartless city, merited the crown, and the spotlessrobe, and the palm-branch of martyrdom, by patient endurance of the lastinsolence of man.
Our father, therefore, held the lamp before us, and we entered thosegloomy regions, wherein alone the servants of the Son of God could at thattroubled era esteem themselves in safety from the hot pursuit ofcontemptuous power. We passed along beneath the arches of the rock-hewnroof, and between the endless winding walls, on either side of whichappeared many humble inscriptions, recording the virtues of the departedand the regrets of the surviving poor. Of these last, however, as itappeared, all must long since have been gathered to the ashes of thosethey lamented, for there was no semblance of any new monument among allthat we observed, and most of them, to judge from the shape of the lettersupon them, must have been set up at least as long ago as the period ofAsinius. After traversing many of these subterraneous galleries, we came,at last, to one more low-roofed than the rest, into which Aurelius struckaside, saying, "Here Tisias lies, but no inscription marks the place wherea martyr finds repose. Here is the spot; with my own hands I lent feeblehelp in digging the grave. Athanasia, too, knows it well, for she also didnot fear to assist in rendering the last honours to that soldier ofChrist."
A flat thin stone, without mark or epitaph, indicated the spot.
"Father," said Athanasia, "let me rest here. I am weary and worn--but hereI shall fear no evil. Conduct Caius back to the grotto; it is time heshould go."
Thus leaving her by the funeral-stone, Aurelius and I retraced our stepsto the mouth of the catacomb.
"Already," said he, "the sky is red eastward--walk cautiously through thegardens, and regain with all speed the house of your kinsman. Go, my son;may all blessings attend your steps. Come back at the rising of the moon,and cast a stone into the fountain, and I shall be within hearing. Go, andfear not."