t was near the hour of midnight when a figure, muffled and concealed in an ample mantle left Castel San Angelo. The guards on duty did not challenge it and after crossing the Aelian bridge, it traversed the deserted thoroughfares until it reached the Flaminian way, which it entered. Avoiding the foot-path near the river, the figure moved stealthily along the farther side of the road, which, as far as could be discerned by the glimpses of the moon which occasionally shone forth from a bank of heavy clouds, was deserted. A few sounds arose from the banks of the river and there was now and then a splash in the water or a distant cry betokening some passing craft. Otherwise profound silence reigned. The low structures and wharfs on the opposite bank could be but imperfectly discerned, but the moonlight fell clear upon the mausoleum of Augustus and the adjacent church of St. Eufemia. The same glimmer also ran like a silver-belt across the stream and revealed the gloomy walls of the Septizonium. The world of habitations beyond this melancholy stronghold was buried in darkness.
After crossing Ponte Sisto the muffled rambler entered a churchyard, which seemed to have been abandoned for ages. The moon was now shining brightly and silvered the massive square watchtowers, the battlements, and pinnacles with gorgeous tracery. Crescentius had hardly set foot on the moss-grown path, when two individuals wrapped in dark, flowing mantles, whose manner was as mysterious as their appearance, glided stealthily past him.
They seemed not to have noticed his presence but pursued their way through the churchyard, creeping beneath the shadow of a wall in the direction of some low structure, which appeared to be a charnel-house situated at its north-western extremity. Before this building grew a black and stunted yew-tree. Arrived at it, they paused to see whether they were observed. They did not notice the unbidden visitor, who had concealed himself behind a buttress. One of the two individuals who seemed bent by great age then unlocked the door of the charnel-house and brought out a pick-axe and a spade. Then both men proceeded some little distance from the building and began to shovel out the mould from a grass-grown grave.
Determined to watch their proceeding, Crescentius crept towards the yew-tree, behind which he ensconced himself. The bent and decrepit one of the two meanwhile continued to ply his spade with a vigour that seemed incomprehensible in one so far stricken in years and of such infirm appearance. At length he paused, and kneeling within the shallow grave endeavoured to drag something from it. His assistant, apparently younger and possessed of greater vigour, knelt to lend his aid. After some exertion they drew forth the corpse of a woman which had been interred without a coffin and apparently in the habiliments worn during life. Then the two men raised the corpse, and conveyed it to the charnel-house. After having done so, one of them returned to the grave for the lantern and, upon returning, entered the building and closed and fastened the door behind him.
Crescentius had chosen the moment when one of the two individuals left the lone house, to enter unobserved and to conceal himself in the shadows. What he had witnessed, had exercised a terrible fascination over him, and he was determined to see to an end the devilish rites about to be performed by the personage, in quest of whom he had come. The chamber in which he found himself was in perfect keeping with the horrible ceremonial about to be performed. In one corner lay a mouldering heap of skulls, bones and other fragments of mortality; in the other a pile of broken coffins, emptied of their tenants and reared on end. But what chiefly attracted his attention, was a ghastly collection of human limbs blackened with pitch, girded round with iron hoops and hung like meat in a shamble against the wall. There were two heads, and although the features were scarcely distinguishable owing to the liquid in which they had been immersed, they still retained a terrible expression of agony. These were the quarters of two priests recently executed for conspiracy against the Pontiff, which had been left there pending their final disposition. The implements of execution were scattered about and mixed with the tools of the sexton, while in the centre of the room stood a large wooden frame supported by rafters. On this frame, bespattered with blood and besmeared with pitch, the body was now placed. This done, the one who seemed to be the moving spirit of the two, placed the lantern beside it, and as the light fell upon its livid features, sullied with earth, and exhibiting traces of decay, Crescentius was so appalled by the sight, that he revealed his presence by a half suppressed outcry. Seeing the futility of further concealment, he stepped into the light of the lantern and was about to speak, when he heard the older address his assistant, neither of whom evinced the least surprise at his presence, while he pointed toward him:
"Look! It is the very face! The bronzed and strongly marked features,—the fierce gray eye—the iron frame of the figure we beheld in the show-stone! Thus he looked, as we tracked his perilous course."
"You know me then?" asked the intruder uneasily.
"You are the Senator of Rome!"
"You spoke of my perilous course! How have you learned this?"