“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.