With this he lifted the torch and went before them behind the mighty trunk of the oak, in front of which they had taken the oath. Silently his friends followed, and saw with astonishment, that, exactly in a line with the turfy ditch in which they had stood, there yawned a wide and open grave, from which the slab of stone had been rolled away. At the bottom, shining ghastly in the light of the torch, lay three long white skeletons; a few rusty pieces of armour, lance-points, and shield-bosses lay beside them.
The men looked with surprise; now into the grave, now at Hildebrand. He silently held the torch over the chasm for some minutes. At last he said quietly:
"My three sons. They have lain here for more than thirty years. They fell on this mountain in the last battle for the city of Ravenna. They fell in the same hour; to-day is the day. They rushed with joyous shouts against the enemies' spears--for their people."
He ceased. The men looked down with emotion. At last the old man drew himself up and glanced at the sky.
"It is enough," said he, "the stars are paling. Midnight is long since past. You three return into the city. Thou, Teja, wilt surely remain with me; to thee, more than to any other, is given the gift of sorrow, as of song; and keep with me the guard of honour beside the dead."
Teja nodded, and sat down without a word at the foot of the grave, just where he was standing. The old man gave Totila the torch, and leaned opposite Teja against the stone slab. The other three signed to him with a parting gesture. Gravely, and buried in deep thought, they descended to the city.
CHAPTER III.
A few weeks after this midnight meeting near Ravenna an assembly took place in Rome; just as secret, also under protection of night, but held by very different persons for very different aims.
It took place on the Appian Way, near the Cœmeterium of St. Calixtus, in a half-ruined passage of the Catacombs; those mysterious underground ways, which almost make a second city under the streets and squares of Rome.
These secret vaults--originally old burial-places, often the refuge of young Christian communities--are so intricate, and their crossings, terminations, exits, and entrances so difficult to thread, that they can only be entered under the guidance of some one intimately acquainted with their inner recesses.