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Page 57
The others, with their lights and voices, came into full view where four
passages met in a cubicle. "Oh," cried Isabel, catching sight of us,
"_do_ come and see Jonah and the whale. It's too funny for anything."
"And where Damathuth found here the many good thainth he----"
"We would like to see Jonah," entreated Dicky.
"Well," said Brother Demetrius crossly, "you go thee him--you catch up.
I will no more. You do not like my Englis' very well. You go with fat
old joke-fellow, and I return the houth. Bethide, it ith the day of my
lumbago." And the venerable Demetrius, with distinct temper, turned his
back on us and waddled off.
We looked at each other in consternation.
"I'm afraid we've hurt his feelings," said Dicky.
"You must go after him, Mr. Dod, and apologize," commanded Mrs.
Portheris.
"Do you suppose he knows the way out?" I asked.
"It _is_ a shame," said Dicky. "I'll go and tell him we'd rather have
him than Jonah any day."
Brother Demetrius was just turning a corner. Darkness encompassed him,
lying thick between us. He looked, in the light of his candle, like
something of Rembrandt's suspended for a moment before us. Dicky started
after him, and, presently, Mrs. Portheris and I were regarding each
other with more friendliness than I would have believed possible across
our flaring dips in the silence of the Catacombs.
"Poor old gentleman," I said; "I hope Mr. Dod will overtake him."
"So do I, indeed," said Mrs. Portheris. "I fear we have been very
inconsiderate. But young people are always so impatient," she added, and
put the blame where it belonged.
I did not retaliate with so much as a reproachful glance. Even as a
censor Mrs. Portheris was so eminently companionable at the moment. But
as we waited for Dicky's return neither of us spoke again. It made too
much noise. Minutes passed, I don't know how many, but enough for us to
look cautiously round to see if there was anything to sit on. There
wasn't, so Mrs. Portheris took my arm. We were not people to lean on
each other in the ordinary vicissitudes of life, and even under the
circumstances I was aware that Mrs. Portheris was a great deal to
support, but there was comfort in every pound of her. At last a faint
light foreshadowed itself in the direction of Dicky's disappearance, and
grew stronger, and was resolved into a candle and a young man, and Mr.
Dod, very much paler than when he left, was with us again. Mrs.
Portheris and I started apart as if scientifically impelled, and
exclaimed simultaneously, "Where is Brother Demetrius?"
"Nowhere in this graveyard," said Dicky. "He's well upstairs by this
time. Must have taken a short cut. I lost sight of him in about two
seconds."
"That was very careless of you, Mr. Dod," said Mrs. Portheris, "very
careless indeed. Now we have no option, I suppose, but to rejoin the
others; and where are they?"
They were certainly not where they had been. Not a trace nor an
echo--not a trace nor an echo--of anything, only parallelograms of
darkness in every direction, and our little circle of light flickering
on the tombs of Anterus, and Fabianus, and Entychianus, and
Epis--martyr--and we three within it, looking at each other.
"If you don't mind," said Dicky, "I would rather not go after them. I
think it's a waste of time. Personally I am quite contented to have
rejoined you. At one time I thought I shouldn't be able to, and the idea
was trying."
"We wouldn't _dream_ of letting you go again," said Mrs. Portheris and I
simultaneously. "But," continued Mrs. Portheris, "we will all go in
search of the others. They can't be very far away. There is nothing so
alarming as standing still."
We proceeded along the passage in the direction of our last glimpse of
our friends and relatives, passing a number of most interesting
inscriptions, which we felt we had not time to pause and decipher, and
came presently to a divergence which none of us could remember. Half of
the passage went down three steps, and turned off to the left under an
arch, and the other half climbed two, and immediately lost itself in
blackness of darkness. In our hesitation Dicky suddenly stooped to a
trace of pink in the stone leading upward, and picked it up--three rose
petals.
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