es underlying one another--and so many of them have fallen
in or been filled with water, that no successful attempt has ever been
made to follow them to their extremities. Nor can it be found out
whether they communicate with one another or remain as they were
originally, distinct from each other.

"You have heard, signor, that the early Christians celebrated the feasts
of the Church by visiting the then newly-decorated and consecrated
subterranean cemeteries, and that on one of these occasions, when a
large crowd of persons had entered to celebrate a festival, it occurred
to the ruling authorities that the opportunity might be advantageously
used to lessen by so many the troublesome and ever-increasing population
of the new faith. Accordingly, a number of huge stones were brought and
the entrance built up and rigidly guarded till all the unfortunate
prisoners had died a martyr's death.

"After that, to guard against a repetition of such an act, various
apertures of exit were made, and may now be frequently found on the
Campagna, where, when one's foot sinks into a doubtful-looking hole
filled with rubbish, one knows it penetrates to the depths beneath.
Secret passages were also made to debouch in the private houses of
well-known Christians or buildings set apart for Christian worship; and
it was from one of these walled-up doorways that I, Beppo Donati, myself
saw _un miracolo_ performed and a legion of devils let loose.

"It was in the church of St. Prassede. St. Prassede, the signor knows,
was one of the daughters of the senator Pudens mentioned by St. Paul as
sending his greetings to Timothy. The present church stands on the site
of the very house once inhabited by this Christian family, and in the
dark crypt under the high altar there is a walled-up doorway with the
sign of the cross upon it. The crypt was originally the cellar of the
ancient house, into which debouched one of the secret entrances to the
Catacombs: at one extremity of the crypt is the doorway in question, now
strongly built up, with the cross impressed in its superficial stucco.

"For many centuries the subterranean excavations behind the crypt have
been haunted by the Evil One and his coadjutors, who break forth from
time to time in unearthly noises, racings, scamperings, moanings and
yellings, and scarcely a man, woman or child in the vicinity but has
heard them with their own veritable ears. Many special services of
exorcism have been perform