Avoiding the
regular entrance, which at that early hour of the morning was
necessarily closed, Ulpius conducted the patrician through a small
wicket into the subterranean apartment, or rather outhouse, which was
his customary, though comfortless, retreat in his leisure hours, and
which was hardly ever entered by the other members of the Christian's
household.
From the low, arched brick ceiling of this place hung an earthenware
lamp, whose light, small and tremulous, left all the corners of the
apartment in perfect obscurity. The thick buttresses that projected
inwards from the walls, made visible by their prominence, displayed on
their surfaces rude representations of idols and temples drawn in chalk,
and covered with strange, mysterious hieroglyphics. On a block of stone
which served as a table lay some fragments of small statues, which
Vetranio recognised as having belonged to the old, accredited
representations of Pagan idols. Over the sides of the table itself were
scrawled in Latin characters these two words, 'Serapis', 'Macrinus'; and
about its base lay some pieces of torn, soiled linen, which still
retained enough of their former character, both in shape, size, and
colour, to convince Vetranio that they had once served as the vestments
of a Pagan priest.
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