sometimes their gloomy pathway tended upward, so that, through a crevice, a little daylight glimmered down upon them, or even a streak of sunshine peeped into a burial niche; then again, they went downward by gradual descent, or by abrupt, rudely hewn steps, into deeper and deeper recesses of the earth.here and there the narrow and tortuous passages widened somewhat, developing themselves into small chapels;--which once, no doubt, had been adorned with marble-work and lighted with ever- burning lamps and tapers.all such illumination and ornament, however, had long since been extinguished and stript away; except, indeed, that the low roofs of a few of these ancient sites of worship were covered with dingy stucco, and frescoed with scriptural scenes and subjects, in the dreariest stage of ruin.
in one such chapel, the guide ed them a low arch, beneath which the body of st.cecilia had been buried after her martyrdom, and where it lay till a sculptor saw it, and rendered it forever beautiful in marble.
in a similar spot they found two sarcophagi, one containing a skeleton, and the other a shrivelled body, which still wore the garments of its former lifetime.
"how dismal all this is!" said hilda, shuddering."i do not know why we came here, nor why we should stay a moment longer.""i hate it all!" cried donatello with peculiar energy."dear friends, let us hasten back into the blessed daylight!"from the first, donatello had n little fancy for the expedition; for, like most italians, and in especial accordance with the law of his own simple and physically happy nature, this young man had an infinite repugnance to graves and skulls, and to all that ghastliness which the gothic mind loves to associate with the idea of death.he shuddered, and looked fearfully round, drawing nearer to miriam, whose attractive influence alone had enticed him into that gloomy region.