"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