abyrinth alone, and we demanded that he
should accompany us.

"No guide--no candles, no coppers," we said.

That seemed to him a valid argument. Loath to leave his money at the
mercy of chance comers, he climbed up and closed the iron shutters of
the grated window,--the cliff descended, sheer, one hundred and two feet
to the Dnyepr at that point,--double-locked the great iron doors, and
there we were in a bank vault, with all possible customers excluded.
Luckily, the saints in these caverns, which differed very little from
those in the former, were labeled in plain letters, since the monk was
too dull-witted to understand the simplest questions from any of us. At
intervals we were permitted a hasty glimpse of a cell, about seven feet
square, furnished only with a stone bench, and a holy picture, with a
shrine-lamp suspended before it. Ugh! There were several sets of
chrism-dripping saintly skulls in these catacombs, also,--fifteen of
the ghastly things in one group. I braced my stomach to the task, and
scrutinized them all attentively; but not a single one of them winked or
nodded at me in approval, as a nun from Kolomna, whom I had met in
Moscow, asserted that they had at her. I really wished to see how an
eyeless skull could manage a wink, and hoped I might be favored.

After traversing long distances of this subterranean maze, and peering
into the "cradle of the monastery," St. Antony's cell, the procession
came to a halt in a tiny church. There stood a monk, actually, though we
might have wandered all day and come out on the banks of the Dnyepr
without finding him, had we gone in without a guide. Beside him, denuded
of its glass bell, stood one of the miraculous skulls. The first Russian
approached, knelt, crossed himself devoutly, and received from the
priest the sign of the cross on his brow, administered with a soft,
small brush dipped in the oil from the skull. Then he kissed the
priest's hand, crossed himself again, and kissed the skull. When we
beheld this, we modestly stood aside, and allowed our companions, the
other four Russian men, to receive anointment in like manner, and pass
on after the monk, who was in haste to return to his bank vault. As I
approached the priest, he raised his brush.

"We are not Orthodox Christians, _batiushka_,"* I said. "But pray give
us your blessing."

* Little father.

He smiled, and, dropping his brush, made the sign of the cross over us.
I was perfectly willing to kis