lding the strange congregation there assembled? It was easy to see
with half an eye that they were no beings of this world. They were
seven, I think, in number; indeed, the chapel had hardly room for more,
and to my dying day, never can I forget that horrible sight. One of
them, who stood at the altar, and who seemed to be the priest, had
evidently been decapitated. He stood upright, holding his head under his
arm.

Another, who was naked with the exception of a cloth round his loins,
was bound to a stake and pierced full of arrows, _a la_ St. Sebastian.
Another, who had been sawn asunder lengthways, was held together by
pieces of rope. One gentleman, who had been skinned alive for the holy
faith, was a most unsightly object, and reminded me of those anatomical
figures you see in doctors' shops. Whenever he moved, the working of his
anatomy was most painfully visible, and he wore his skin over his left
arm like an overcoat.

There was another, who had evidently been burnt, for he was as black as
a cinder, and presented a most woe-begone aspect. A sixth had probably
been torn to pieces by some wild beast, for his flesh bore the print of
talons, and here and there hung in long strips, while a seventh had been
broken on the wheel, and seemed capable of bending his body into the
most impossible positions.

My blood ran cold at such a spectacle, and turning to my guide, I asked
the meaning of this strange sight. She informed me that they were all
spirits of early Christians who had suffered martyrdom.

"Then why," I asked, "are they not in Paradise instead of celebrating
mass here in these catacombs?"

The reason she gave me was that they had all been massacred in their
sin, and their spirits not being yet pure enough to enter the realms of
eternal bliss, they were, like herself, doomed to go through their
religious duties as on earth, until masses should be said for their
deliverance. This, she told me, was her object in leading me here--that
I might see the misery of these wretched spirits, and pray for them. I
promised I would do so, and mass being finished, she introduced me to
the skinned gentleman, whom, she informed me, was her lover. He bowed,
grinned horribly, and offered me his anatomical hand, after which I had
a word with each of the spirits in turn, and then prepared to take my
departure.

"_Ora pro nobis!_" they all cried at once.

"_Sic erit_," I replied, and following my guide once more, she led me
a