“Thanks, father!” said Athanasia; “there no one will seek us: there best shall our thanksgivings and our prayers be offered. We will rest by the sepulchre of our friend, and Valerius will go into the city, and procure what 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 This terminated at length in a door, the bolts of which being withdrawn, we found ourselves beneath the sky of night, at the extremity of one of the wooded walks that skirt the southern base of the Palatine—the remains of the Assyrian magnificence which had once connected the Golden House of Nero with the more modest structures of his predecessors. I wrapped Athanasia in my cloak, and walked beside her in my tunic; and Aurelius conducted us by many windings, avoiding as far as was possible the glare of the Suburra, all round about the edge of the city, to the gardens which hang over the wall by the great Esquiline Gate.
“Is it here,” said I, when he paused—“is it in the midst of this splendour that you hope to find a safe obscurity?”
“Have patience,” replied the old man; “you are a stranger:—and yet you speak what I should have heard [pg 342]without surprise from many that have spent all their days in Rome. Few, indeed, ever think of entering a region which is almost as extensive as the city itself, and none, I think, are acquainted with all its labyrinths.”
So saying, the priest led the way into one of the groves. Its trees formed a dense canopy overhead; nor could we pass without difficulty among the close-creeping undergrowth. At length we reached the centre of the wide thicket, and found a small space of soil comparatively bare. The light of moon and star plunged down there among the surrounding blackness of boughs, as into some deep well, and shewed the entrance of a natural grotto, which had, indeed, all the appearance of oblivion and utter desertedness. “Confess,” said he, “that I did not deceive you. But there is no hurry now; let me taste once more the water of this forgotten spring.”
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 now almost all its surface was covered with leaves. The marble margin shewed dim with moss; nor had a statue just within the entrance of the grot escaped this desolation. Damp herbage obscured its recumbent limbs, and the Parian stone had lost its brightness. “You can scarcely see where the inscription was,” said Aurelius, “for the letters are filled up or effaced; but I remember when many admired it, and I can still repeat the lines—
‘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]