The easy-tempered Greek was too good-natured to inflict wanton pain, so he ignored its bad Latinity, and contented himself with saying that "it was indeed a very remarkable epitaph."
In a few minutes they emerged from the gloom of the Catacomb to the golden glory which was flooding the broad Campagna from the westering sun. "Would," thought Isidorus within himself, "that I could thus emerge from the gloomy doubts and fears in which my spirit gropes, to the golden light of Christian life."
FOOTNOTES:
[24] The following, except the last one, are all authentic inscriptions from the Catacombs, selected from many hundreds, translated by the writer in his volume on this subject.
[CHAPTER IX.]
A DIFFICULT QUEST.
The Empress Valeria had not forgotten her purpose to discover, if possible, the father of her freed-woman, Callirhoë, and at the earliest opportunity took steps to accomplish her design. It was, she knew, a task of much difficulty, and one that required an intelligent and confidential agent. It was also of the utmost importance that some sign of identity should be exhibited as a guarantee of the good faith of the agent. With this view the Empress one day, as she sat at her toilet in the apartment described in our [third chapter], thus interrogated her freed-woman and namesake, Valeria Callirhoë.
"Hast thou any token, child," she asked, "by which, should we find thy father, he would be assured of thy identity?"
"I was despoiled of everything, your Majesty," said the girl, "by the pirates by whom we were captured; except the clothes in which I stood. All my rings and jewellery were rudely snatched away, and I never saw them again."