ramblings were loud enough in all
conscience. The sacristan came out from the body of the church and
suggested another exorcism to the reverend father, who answered that he
preferred the pickaxe, and, turning to beckon to his workmen, found they
had fled. Nowise daunted, the reverend gentleman took off his coat,
rolled up his sleeves and went to work with a will, making the vault
re-echo with his blows. This operation, while it had the effect of
thinning the audience still further in the church, where Teresina and I
lingered, certainly abated the noises behind the door, until the padre's
blows, continuing with unabated energy, effected a breach where the very
head and claws of the Evil One himself were actually to be seen
protruding through the aperture: in one moment more the whole troop of
the enemy had dashed through the opening, upset the padre, and were in
full career through the church, from whence the whole assembly took
flight into the streets, uttering frantic shouts and seeking safety in
the houses. The legionaries of Satan had it all to themselves, and
continued their career until they arrived at the place where the English
keep their hounds, where, with a tremendous yell, they leaped over the
gate and disappeared in the kennels.

"I myself saw this, signor," said Beppo, giving his head an emphatic
nod, "and have I not every reason for saying that the hounds, as well
as their masters, are possessed?"

Beppo's story still leaving some physiological questions unsolved in my
dark Protestant mind, I took occasion to speak to Father Xavier himself
about it when I next met him. From him I learned that on the morning in
question a party of English left the city on a hunting-excursion on the
Campagna. A fox was unearthed after considerable delay, and a sharp run
started, when suddenly fox, dogs and all disappeared down one of the
numerous holes leading to the Catacombs. As the occurrence was not
unusual, the hunt waited, expecting them to reappear up some other
aperture; but after lingering the greater part of the day they were
obliged to return to the city without the dogs, who had found their way
through the dark and intricate passages to the door of the crypt, where
the sceptical padre, as we have seen, liberated them.

M.S.D.

THE DEMIDOFFS.

Readers of the agreeable memoirs of Madame Le Brun may remember the
passage in which she speaks of a certain "M. Demidoff, le plus riche
particulier de la Ru