thee," the torch-bearer said.
"Many and devious windings will take thee up and down, back and across
the Campagna that doth lie, with its cart burdened roads, fifty feet
above our heads. By the light of thy lamp thou wilt see the walls
change. No longer are they sharp, nor are there bottomless pits, for
soon we enter the sleeping place of those whose bodies toil no more nor
their hearts hunger for the freedom that belongs to every man."

It was as the guide had spoken. By the flickering light of the smoking
torch, the eyes of the Phoenician soon caught the white lines of
skeletons lying in grottoes and niches cut tier above tier in the side
walls of the narrow corridors. After walking several miles they
arrived at a large chamber with massive stone arches, crudely cut,
reaching to a dome-shaped ceiling. Here paintings decorated the walls,
and images of popular gods and goddesses were set in niches, and models
of sculpture on pedestals. One side wall of the large room was lined
with slabs, some with inscriptions and others carved with the notes of
music. Several torches burning on high standards gave the chamber a
soft light. From it lead five passageways opening, like dark mouths,
into unknown byways.

"Here we tarry, while I strengthen the lights," said the torch-bearer.
"This is the headquarters of the union of all those who chant hymns,
take part in the Olympic games, dance after the manner of satyrs and
play the Greek trilogies. A league of fun-makers they are. Also these
actors do lay claim to the greatest of all antiquity for their order,
saying that no less a one than Homer himself did found it. Also they
make claim to being the first of all baptists and their speech-makers
will prove into your ears that Dion, the forerunner of their Dionysus,
did first initiate with it, and how that all the Phrygian Brotherhoods
were baptists."

"Do they baptize now?"

"Yea, yea. Every Brotherhood of them all whose torches I light doth
initiate with the bath of purification. This is as necessary as the
common table of communion around which they all sit. The Brotherhood
of Actors and Fun-makers is one of the strongest, and least often
disturbed with dissension."

"Doth dissension come even into a brotherhood?"

"Art thou a _kurios_ and knowest not this?" the torch-bearer asked
quickly.

"It hath been so in Syria and Phoenicia, yet I hoped in Rome to find
this evil remedied."

"Human nature is the same i