"Nay. Yet were it well for a kurios to see to what ignoble ends one of like desires with himself can come, and for no crime save the lack of freedom to be better than a slave. Another day thou mayest see. Now we must hasten where we go. The mouth of the subterranean passage opens just ahead. The way will be narrow when we reach the corridor leading into the tufa rock. I guide thee this back way, and longer, that thou mayest pass the prison where my fellow working man and thy brother, oft are thrown into."
As they made their way into the subterranean passage, the light of day faded into a small pale spot and then went out, leaving the gloom of midnight ahead. "The path beneath thy feet is smooth. The walls are so close thy hand on either side can feel the way. There is no water nor living beast to fear. When we reach the first chamber, we will find a torch burning with which to light other torches. Follow me."
A faint glow, like a star against the pitch black, told them they were near the chamber where the spark, as they entered, grew into the dim light of a torch which cast a yellow circle on the rock floor. Here the guide opened his bundle and took out two torches which he lit. Handing one to the Phoenician he said, "Watch well thy step and keep thou at my heels. We go down into a huge grotto quarried in the bowels of the earth. Its passages are cut through sharp cornered rocks between which thou must squeeze thy body, and yet other rocks stick out into the darkness like the bristles of a mad boar. Beware these bristles! If thou shouldst run against one, thy feet will stumble over the edge of the abyss. Once thou hast fallen into it, no more forever will thine eyes behold the light of day. Hold tight thy lamp. Watch well thy step."
Carefully they made their way down, and down, and around the sharp rocks in silence. Once they stopped and the guide said, "Stand close against the wall. Just beyond thy feet lieth the hole of live tombs that is a prison. From it was quarried rich material to build palaces for masters. And the hole that was left of their labor hath often made good prison for the workmen who quarried, when found guilty of the crime of planning freedom."
Like parasital mites making their intestinal way the two men followed the windings of the narrow, black corridor until they came into another chamber where, from a grotto in the wall, oil was taken to replenish the torch cups.
"There is now a long journey before thee," the torch-bearer said. "Many and devious windings will take thee up and down, back and across the Campagna that doth lie, with its cart burdened roads, fifty feet above our heads. By the light of thy lamp thou wilt see the walls change. No longer are they sharp, nor are there bottomless pits, for soon we enter the sleeping place of those whose bodies toil no more nor their hearts hunger for the freedom that belongs to every man."
It was as the guide had spoken. By the flickering light of the smoking torch, the eyes of the Phoenician soon caught the white lines of skeletons lying in grottoes and niches cut tier above tier in the side walls of the narrow corridors. After walking several miles they arrived at a large chamber with massive stone arches, crudely cut, reaching to a dome-shaped ceiling. Here paintings decorated the walls, and images of popular gods and goddesses were set in niches, and models of sculpture on pedestals. One side wall of the large room was lined with slabs, some with inscriptions and others carved with the notes of music. Several torches burning on high standards gave the chamber a soft light. From it lead five passageways opening, like dark mouths, into unknown byways.
"Here we tarry, while I strengthen the lights," said the torch-bearer. "This is the headquarters of the union of all those who chant hymns, take part in the Olympic games, dance after the manner of satyrs and play the Greek trilogies. A league of fun-makers they are. Also these actors do lay claim to the greatest of all antiquity for their order, saying that no less a one than Homer himself did found it. Also they make claim to being the first of all baptists and their speech-makers will prove into your ears that Dion, the forerunner of their Dionysus, did first initiate with it, and how that all the Phrygian Brotherhoods were baptists."
"Do they baptize now?"
"Yea, yea. Every Brotherhood of them all whose torches I light doth initiate with the bath of purification. This is as necessary as the common table of communion around which they all sit. The Brotherhood of Actors and Fun-makers is one of the strongest, and least often disturbed with dissension."