Fabiola; Or, The Church of the Catacombs

by Nicholas Patrick Wiseman

“Hark!” said a second, while they were engaged in this operation; “what is that strange noise, as if of scratching and hammering at a distance? I have heard it for some time.”

“And, look!” added a third; “the distant lights have disappeared, and the music has ceased. We are certainly discovered.”

“No danger,” said Torquatus, putting on a boldness which he did not feel. “That noise only comes from those old moles, Diogenes and his sons, busy preparing graves for the Christians we shall seize.”

An Altar in the Cemetery of St. Sixtus.

Torquatus had in vain advised the troop not to bring torches, but to provide themselves with such lamps as we see Diogenes represented carrying, in his picture, or waxen tapers, which he had brought for himself; but the men swore they would not go down without plenty of light, and such means for it as could not be put out by a draught of wind, or a stroke on the arm. The effects were soon obvious. As they advanced, silently and cautiously, along the low narrow gallery, the resinous torches crackled and hissed with a fierce glare, which heated and annoyed them; while a volume of thick pitchy smoke from each rolled downwards on to the bearers from the roof, half stifled them, and made a dense atmosphere of cloud around themselves, which effectually dimmed their light. Torquatus kept at the head of the party, counting every turning right and left, as he had noted them; though he found every mark which he had made carefully removed. He was staggered and baulked, when, after having counted little more than half the proper number, he found the road completely blocked up.

The fact was, that keener eyes than he was aware of had been on the look-out. Severus had never relaxed his watchfulness, determined not to be surprised. He was near the entrance to the cemetery below, when the soldiers reached it above; and he ran forward at once to the place where the sand had been prepared for closing the road; near which his brother and several other stout workmen were stationed, in case of danger. In a moment, with that silence and rapidity to which they were trained, they set to work lustily, shovelling the sand across the narrow and low corridor from each side, while well-directed blows of the pick brought from the low roof behind, huge flakes of sandstone, which closed up the opening. Behind this barrier they stood, hardly suppressing a laugh as they heard their enemies through its loose separation. Their work it was which had been heard, and which had screened off the lights, and deadened the song.

Torquatus’s perplexity was not diminished by the volley of oaths and imprecations, and the threats of violence which were showered upon him, for a fool or a traitor. “Stay one moment, I entreat you,” he said. “It is possible I have mistaken my reckoning. I know the right turn by a remarkable tomb a few yards within it; I will just step into one or two of the last corridors, and see.”

With these words, he ran back to the next gallery on the left, advanced a few paces, and totally disappeared.

Though his companions had followed him to the very mouth of the gallery, they could not see how this happened. It appeared like witchcraft, in which they were quite ready to believe. His light and himself seemed to have vanished at once. “We will have no more of this work,” they said; “either Torquatus is a traitor, or he has been carried off by magic.” Worried, heated in the close atmosphere, almost inflamed by their lights, begrimed, blinded, and choked by the pitchy smoke, crest-fallen and disheartened, they turned back; and since their road led straight to the entrance, they flung away their blazing torches into the side galleries, one here and one there, as they passed by, to get rid of them. When they looked back, it seemed as if a triumphal illumination was kindling up the very atmosphere of the gloomy corridor. From the mouths of the various caverns came forth a fiery light which turned the dull sandstone into a bright crimson; while the volumes of smoke above, hung like amber clouds along the whole gallery. The sealed tombs, receiving the unusual reflection on their yellow tiles, or marble slabs, appeared covered with golden or silver plates, set in the red damask of the walls. It looked like a homage paid to martyrdom, by the very furies of heathenism, on the first day of persecution. The torches which they had kindled to destroy, only served to shed brightness on monuments of that virtue which had never failed to save the Church.