em up in the inner part of the prison, so that, bereaved
of all comfort and light, they were forced to sustain extreme torment,
from the darkness and stench of the prison." And, in like manner, other
martyrs of Africa, about the time of St. Cyprian's martyrdom, that is,
eight or ten years later than the date of this story, say, "We were not
frightened at the foul darkness of that place; for soon that murky prison
was radiant with the brightness of the Spirit. What days, what nights we
passed there no words can describe. The torments of that prison no
statement can equal."

Yet there was a place of confinement even worse than this. In the floor of
this inner prison was a sort of trap-door, or hole, opening into the
_barathrum_, or pit, and called, from the original prison at Rome, the
Tullianum. Sometimes prisoners were confined here, sometimes despatched by
being cast headlong into it through the opening. It was into this pit at
Rome that St. Chrysanthus was cast; and there, and probably in other
cities, it was nothing short of the public cesspool.

It may be noticed that the Prophet Jeremiah seems to have had personal
acquaintance with Vestibule, Robur, and Barathrum. We read in one place of
his being shut up in the "atrium," that is, the vestibule, "of the prison,
which was in the house of the king." At another time he is in the
"ergastulum," which would seem to be the inner prison. Lastly his enemies
let him down by ropes into the lacus or pit, in which "there was no water,
but mud."

As to Callista, then, after the first day's examination, she was thrown
for nearly twenty-four hours into the stifling Robur, or inner prison.
After the sentence, on the second day, she was let down, as the
commencement of her punishment, that is, of her martyrdom, into the
loathsome Barathrum, lacus, or pit, called Tullianum, there to lie for
another twenty hours before she was brought out to the equuleus or rack.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

THE MARTYRDOM.

Callista had sighed for the bright and clear atmosphere of Greece, and she
was thrown into the Robur and plunged into the Barathrum of Sicca. But in
reality, though she called it Greece, she was panting after a better
country and a more lasting home, and this country and home she had found.
She was now setting out for it.

It was, indeed, no slight marvel that she was not already there. She had
been lowered into tha