xamined by the light of a lantern. After a
while the great iron doors opened before them, and they entered.

Vinicius saw an extensive vaulted cellar, from which they passed to a
series of others. Dim tapers illuminated the interior of each, which was
filled with people. Some of these were lying at the walls sunk in sleep,
or dead, perhaps. Others surrounded large vessels of water, standing
in the middle, out of which they drank as people tormented with fever;
others were sitting on the grounds, their elbows on their knees, their
heads on their palms; here and there children were sleeping, nestled up
to their mothers. Groans, loud hurried breathing of the sick, weeping,
whispered prayers, hymns in an undertone, the curses of overseers
were heard round about it. In this dungeon was the odor of crowds and
corpses. In its gloomy depth dark figures were swarming; nearer, close
to flickering lights, were visible faces, pale, terrified, hungry, and
cadaverous, with eyes dim, or else flaming with fever, with lips blue,
with streams of sweat on their foreheads, and with clammy hair. In
corners the sick were moaning loudly; some begged for water; others, to
be led to death. And still that prison was less terrible than the old
Tullianum. The legs bent under Vinicius when he saw all this, and breath
was failing in his breast. At the thought that Lygia was in the midst of
this misery and misfortune, the hair rose on his head, and he stifled
a cry of despair. The amphitheatre, the teeth of wild beasts, the
cross,--anything was better than those dreadful dungeons filled with
the odor of corpses, places in which imploring voices called from every
corner,--

"Lead us to death!"

Vinicius pressed his nails into his palms, for he felt that he was
growing weak, and that presence of mind was deserting him. All that he
had felt till then, all his love and pain, changed in him to one desire
for death.

Just then near his side was heard the overseer of the "Putrid Pits",

"How many corpses have ye to-day?"

"About a dozen," answered the guardian of the prison, "but there will be
more before morning; some are in agony at the walls."

And he fell to complaining of women who concealed dead children so as
to keep them near and not yield them to the "Putrid Pits." "We must
discover corpses first by the odor; through this the air, so terrible
already, is spoiled still more. I would rather be a slave in some rural
prison than guard these dog