h century, and to this again John had made important
additions in the past two years. Looking down upon the sea from the
windows of the villa, one could on calm days easily discern the remains
of Roman piers and moles lying below the surface of the transparent
water; and the tufa-rock on which the house was built was burrowed with
those unintelligible excavations of a classic date so common in the
neighbourhood. These subterraneous rooms and passages, while they
aroused my curiosity, seemed at the same time so gloomy and repellent
that I never explored them. But on one sunny morning, as I walked at
the foot of the rocks by the sea, I ventured into one of the larger of
these chambers, and saw that it had at the far end an opening leading
apparently to an inner room. I had walking with me an old Italian female
servant who took a motherly interest in my proceedings, and who, relying
principally upon a very slight knowledge of English, had constituted
herself my body-guard. Encouraged by her presence, I penetrated this
inner room and found that it again opened in turn into another, and so
on until we had passed through no less than four chambers.

They were all lighted after a fashion through vent-holes which somewhere
or other reached the outer air, but the fourth room opened into a fifth
which was unlighted. My companion, who had been showing signs of alarm
and an evident reluctance to proceed further, now stopped abruptly and
begged me to return. It may have been that her fear communicated itself
to me also, for on attempting to cross the threshold and explore the
darkness of the fifth cell, I was seized by an unreasoning panic and by
the feeling of undefined horror experienced in a nightmare. I hesitated
for an instant, but my fear became suddenly more intense, and springing
back, I followed my companion, who had set out to run back to the outer
air. We never paused until we stood panting in the full sunlight by the
sea. As soon as the maid had found her breath, she begged me never to go
there again, explaining in broken English that the caves were known in
the neighbourhood as the "Cells of Isis," and were reputed to be haunted
by demons. This episode, trifling as it may appear, had so great an
effect upon me that I never again ventured on to the lower walk which
ran at the foot of the rocks by the sea.

In the house above, my brother had built a large hall after the ancient
Roman style, and this, with a dining-room an