ent persons for very different aims.

It took place on the Appian Way, near the C[oe]meterium of St.
Calixtus, in a half-ruined passage of the Catacombs; those mysterious
underground ways, which almost make a second city under the streets and
squares of Rome.

These secret vaults--originally old burial-places, often the refuge of
young Christian communities--are so intricate, and their crossings,
terminations, exits, and entrances so difficult to thread, that they
can only be entered under the guidance of some one intimately
acquainted with their inner recesses.

But the men, whose secret intercourse we are about to watch, feared no
danger. They were well led. For it was Silverius, the Catholic
archdeacon of the old church of St. Sebastian, who had led his friends
direct from the crypt of his basilica down a steep staircase into this
branch of the vaults; and the Roman priests had the reputation of
having studied the windings of these labyrinths since the days of the
first confessor.

The persons assembled also seemed not to have met there for the first
time; the gloom of the place made little impression upon them.
Indifferently they leaned against the walls of the dismal semi-circular
room, which, scantily lighted by a hanging lamp of bronze, formed the
termination of the low passage. Indifferently they heard the drops of
damp fall from the roof to the floor, or, when their feet now and then
struck against white and mouldering bones, they calmly pushed them to
one side.

Besides Silverius, there were present a few other orthodox priests, and
a number of aristocratic Romans, nobles of the Western Empire, who had
remained for centuries in almost hereditary possession of the higher
dignities of the state and city.

Silently and attentively they observed the movements of the archdeacon;
who, after having mustered those present, and thrown several searching
glances into the neighbouring passages--where might be seen, keeping
watch in the gloom, some youths in clerical costume--now evidently
prepared to open the assembly in form.

Yet once again he went up to a tall man who leaned motionless against
the wall opposite to him, and with whom he had repeatedly exchanged
glances; and when this man had replied to a questioning gesture by a
silent nod, he turned to the others and spoke.

"Beloved in the name of the triune God! Once again are we assembled
here to do a holy work. The sword of Edom is brandished over our hea