Imprimatur

Night the Third

Between the 13th and 14th September, 1683

A little over an hour later, after Cristofano had taken a last look at my master, Abbot Melani knocked three times at my door. I was intent upon my little diary: I hid it carefully under the mattress before admitting him.

"A drop of oil," said the abbot enigmatically, immediately after entering.

I suddenly remembered how, when we last met, he had noticed a drop of oil on my forehead, which he had taken on a fingertip and brought to his tongue.

"Tell me, what oil do you use for the lamps?"

"The College of Cardinals has commanded that oil mixed with wine lees is always to be…"

"I did not ask you what you are supposed to use but what you do use, when your master," and he pointed to him, "is resting in his bed."

Embarrassed, I confessed to him that I also used good oil, because we had it in abundance, while the impure oil mixed with dregs was in short supply.

Abbot Melani could not hide a sly grin. "Now don't lie: how many lanterns have you?"

"To begin with, we had three, but we broke one when we were climbing down into the gallery. There are two left, but one needs a little mending."

"Good, take the better one and follow me. And take that too."

He pointed at a rod, leaning vertically in a corner of the chamber, with which in his rare free moments Signor Pellegrino was wont to go fishing on the banks of the Tiber, just behind the little church of Santa Maria in Posterula.

A few instants later, we were already in the closet, and had entered the well that gave access to the stairs leading down to the underground galleries. We lowered ourselves with the help of the iron rungs set into the wall until we felt the brick platform under our feet, and then we took the square stairwell. At the point where the stairway was excavated directly from the tufa, we encountered again the coating of slime on the steps, while the air became heavy.

At last, we reached the gallery, deep and dark as the night in which I had discovered it.

As I followed him, Abbot Melani must have felt my curiosity as though I were breathing down his neck.

"Now at last you will know what that strange Abbot Melani has in his head."

He stopped.

"Give me the rod."

He laid half the cane across his knee and with a sharp movement snapped it in two. I was about to protest, but Atto stopped me.

"Do not worry. If you ever have to report this to your master, he will understand that this was a matter of emergency. Now, do as I tell you."

He made me walk in front of him, holding the broken cane vertically behind me and dragging the end of it along the vault of the gallery, like a pen sliding on paper. Thus we advanced for a few dozen cane's lengths. Meanwhile the abbot asked me some bizarre questions.

"Does oil mixed with wine dregs have a special taste?"

"I would not know how to describe it," I replied, although in reality I knew the taste perfectly well, having more than once furtively sprinkled some onto a slice of bread purloined from the pantry, when Signor Pellegrino was sleeping and the meal had been too frugal.

"Would you call it rancid, bitter and acid?"

"Perhaps… Yes, I'd say so," I admitted.

"Good," replied the abbot.

We advanced a few paces further, and suddenly the abbot ordered me to stop.

"We are there!"

I looked at him in some perplexity.

"Have you still not understood?" he said to me, his grin queerly deformed by the lamplight. "Then let us see if this will help you."

He took the cane from my hands and pressed it hard against the vault of the gallery. I heard something like the groaning of hinges, then a tremendous reverberation, and finally, the skittering of a little shower of dirt and stones.

Then terror struck: a huge black serpent lunged at me and almost seized me, after which it remained grotesquely suspended from the ceiling like a hanged man.

I withdrew instinctively with a shiver, while the abbot burst out laughing.

"Come here and bring the lantern closer," he said triumphantly.

In the vault, a hole appeared, almost as wide as the entire cavity; and from it hung a thick rope. This was what, tumbling down when the trap opened, had brushed against me and terrified me.

"You let yourself be frightened by nothing, and for that you deserve a little punishment. You will go up first. Then you will have to help me up after you."

Fortunately I succeeded in climbing up without too much difficulty. Clinging to the rope, I swarmed up it until I reached the upper cavity. 1 helped Abbot Melani to join me there and he marshalled all his strength, twice coming close to dropping our one and only lantern.

We found ourselves in the middle of another gallery, aligned obliquely to the first one.

"Now, it is up to you to decide: right or left?"

I protested (weakly, fearful as I was): was this not perhaps the moment for Abbot Melani to explain to me how he had worked all this out?

"You are right, but then I shall choose: let us proceed to the left."

As I myself had explained to the abbot, oil mixed with dregs generally has a far less agreeable taste than that which is used for frying or for good cooking. The drop which he had found on my forehead the day after the first exploration of the gallery (and which, miraculously, had not come into contact with the blankets when I lay down) could not, according to its taste, come from the lanterns of the inn, which I myself had filled with good oil. Nor did it come from Cristofano's medicinal ointments, which were all different in colour. Therefore, it came from an unknown lantern which-who knows how-must have been situated above my head. From this, the abbot had concluded with his usual alacrity that there must be an opening in the vault of the gallery: an opening which also provided the thief's only possible way out, when he had so inexplicably vanished into nothingness.

"The oil that fell on your forehead must have dripped from the thief's lantern through a crack next to the hinges of the trapdoor."

"And the cane?" I asked.

"I was sure that the trapdoor, if it existed, must be very well hidden. But a cane like that of your master's fishing rod is very sensitive to vibrations, and we were sure to feel a shock when it moved from the stone of the gallery to the wood of the trapdoor. Which is what indeed happened."

I was secretly grateful to the abbot for having in some way attributed to both of us the credit for having discovered the trapdoor.

"The mechanism is somewhat rudimentary," he continued, "but it works. The rope, which so affrighted you when it came down from the ceiling, is simply stowed on the top of the trapdoor and closed together with it. When the trap is opened from the gallery below, pushing upwards, the rope falls down. It is important to put it back in the same way when one returns if one wants it to be available again."

"Then you think that the thief always moves back and forth along this gallery."

"I do not know; I suppose so. And I suppose too, if you wish to know, that this gallery leads somewhere else."

"Did you also suppose that solely with the aid of the cane we should find the trapdoor?"

"Nature makes merit, but fortune sets it to work," pronounced the abbot.

And by the faint light of the lantern the exploration began.

In that gallery, too, as in the one we had left beneath us, a person of normal stature was obliged to stoop slightly because the vault was so low. And, as we at once observed, the material of which it was built, a pattern of diamond-shaped bricks, seemed identical to that of the previous gallery. The first stretch went in a long straight line which seemed gradually to slope downhill. "If our thief has followed this track, he must be strong and fit," observed Abbot Melani. "Not everyone could climb that rope and the terrain is rather slippery."

Suddenly we both suffered the most atrocious fright.

A stranger's footfalls, light but utterly clear, were approaching from a point which could not be identified. Atto stopped me, squeezing my shoulder hard, to signal the need for extreme caution. It was then that a reverberation caused us to tremble, similar to that when we had opened the trapdoor through which we passed not long before.

Hardly had we recovered our breath than we looked at one another, our eyes still wide with anxiety.

"Do you think it came from above or below?" muttered Abbot Melani.

"More above than below."

"I'd say so, too. So it cannot be the same trapdoor-it must be another one."

"And how many do you think there are?"

"Who knows? We were mistaken not to explore this ceiling too with the cane. Perhaps we might have found another opening. Someone must have heard us coming and have hurried to bar the passage between ourselves and him. The reverberation was too loud, I could not say whether it came from behind our shoulders or from the stretch which we have still to cover."

"Could it be the thief of the keys?"

"You keep asking me questions which cannot be answered. Perhaps he had the idea of taking a stroll this evening, perhaps not. Did you by any chance keep an eye on the entrance to the closet this evening?"

I admitted that I had not given much thought to that.

"Bravo," commented the abbot with a sneer. "So we have come down here without knowing whether we are following in someone's footsteps or he in ours, and, what is more… Look!"

We were at the top of a staircase. Lowering the lantern to our feet, we saw that the steps were in stone and skilfully carved. After an instant's reflection, the abbot sighed: "I have no idea what may await us down below. The steps are steep: if there is someone there, he knows that we are coming. Is that not true?" he concluded, calling down the stairs and creating a horrible echo which made me jump. Then, armed only with the feeble lamp, we began our descent.

When the steps came to an end, we found ourselves at last walking along a pavement. Judging by the echo of our footsteps, we appeared to be in a great hollow, perhaps a cavern. Abbot Melani thrust the lantern upwards. Great brick arches appeared in profile, cut into a wall so high that we could not distinguish its top, and through the arches led a passage towards which we had all the while been moving unawares.

Scarcely had we halted than all fell silent again. For a moment, the lantern flame weakened, until it almost went out. It was then that I noticed a furtive rustling to our left.

"Did you hear?" murmured the abbot, alarmed.

We again heard rustling, this time a little further off. Atto gestured to me not to move: and instead of following the passage that lay before us, he ran on tiptoe under the arch to our right, beyond which the light from the lantern no longer reached him. I stood waiting, with the lantern in my hand, petrified. Again there was silence.

A new rustling, this time nearer, came from behind my shoulders. I turned around sharply. A shadow slipped to my left. I rushed towards Abbot Melani, more to protect myself than to put him on guard.

"No-o-o," he whispered as soon as I could see him by the light of the lamp: he had silently shifted a few paces to the left and was squatting on the ground. Again, a grey silhouette emerged from who knows where and passed swiftly between us, trying to move away from the arches.

"Catch him!" screamed Abbot Melani, approaching in his turn, and he was right, because that someone or something seemed to trip up and almost fall. I rushed out blindly, praying God that Atto would reach him before I did.

But just at that moment, there fell upon me, and everywhere around me, a loud and horrible rain of cadavers, skulls and human bones, and mandibles and jawbones and ribs and shoulder-blades and disgusting filth, struck down by which, I fell to the ground and remained there. Only then did I fully distinguish that revolting stuff from close quarters, as I lay half-buried and almost dead. I tried to free myself from the monstrous crunching mortiferous mush, whose horrid gurgling mingled with a duet of infernal bellowing of which I could guess neither the origin nor the nature. What I could now recognise as a vertebra obstructed my vision and what had once been the skull of a living person looked at me threateningly, almost suspended in the void. I tried to scream, but my mouth uttered no sound. I felt my strength failing me, and while my last thoughts gathered painfully into a prayer for my soul's salvation, as in a dream, I heard the abbot's voice resounding through the vaults.

"That's enough, I can see you. Halt or I fire."

It seemed to me that a long time passed (but now I know it was only a few minutes) before I was called back from the formless nightmare into which I had fallen by the echoing sound of a strange voice.

I noted with alarm that a strange hand was holding my head up, while someone (a third being?) freed my limbs from the frightful mass under which I was all but buried. Instinctively, I drew back from these strange attentions but, slipping clumsily, I found myself with my nose up against a nauseous-smelling member (impossible to tell which one). Suddenly overcome by the exertions of my stomach, in a few seconds I threw up all my dinner. I heard the stranger curse in a language that seemed similar to my own.

While I was still trying to recover my breath, I felt the kindly hand of Abbot Melani grasp me under the armpit.

"Courage, boy."

I rose painfully to my feet, and by the dim light of the lamp I caught sight of an individual, wrapped in a sort of gown, muttering as he bent down to the ground in a febrile attempt to isolate from my gastric secretions the no less vomit-inducing heap of human remains.

"To each his own treasures," sneered Atto.

I saw that Abbot Melani was holding a little device in his hand; from what I could make out, it ended with a piece of shining wood inset with gleaming metal. He was pointing it threateningly at a second individual, dressed like his companion and seated on a carved stone.

In the moment when the lantern lit up this figure, I was thunderstruck by the sight of his face, that is, if one could call it a face. For it was nothing but a symphony of wrinkles, a concerto of folds, a madrigal of ribbons of skin which seemed to hold together only because they were too old and tired to rebel against their enforced companionship. The grey and diffident pupils were crowned by the intense red of the eye, which made of the whole one of the most fearsome sights I had ever beheld. The picture was completed by sharp brown teeth, worthy of an infernal vision by Melozzo da Forli.

"Corpisantari," murmured the abbot to himself, disgustedly, shaking his head.

"You could at least have shown a little more care," he added sardonically. "You scared these two gentlemen."

And he lowered the little device with which he had been keeping the first mysterious individual covered, returning it to his pocket in token of peace.

While I was cleaning myself up as well as I could under the circumstances, and struggling to overcome the nausea that still afflicted me, I was able to see the face of the second individual when he stood up for a moment. Or rather, to catch a glimpse of him, because he wore a filthy greatcoat with sleeves that were too long and a cowl that almost completely covered his face, leaving a slit through which, when the light permitted it, one could distinguish his features. And that was just as well, for after many patient attempts to observe him I discovered the existence of a whitish half- closed eye and of another swollen eyeball, enormous and protruding, as though it were almost about to fall to the ground; a nose like a deformed and cankered cucumber, and a yellowish, greasy skin; while, as to the mouth, I could never have sworn that he had one, were it not for the formless sounds that occasionally emerged from that vicinity. From the sleeves, two hands would furtively emerge from time to time, hooked and clawed, and as decrepit as they were swift and predatory.

The abbot turned and met my fearful and questioning gaze. With a nod, he pointed to the first of the two, impatient to recover his freedom so that he could rejoin his companion in his disgusting sorting of bones from the contents of my stomach.

"How curious," said Atto, dusting his sleeves and shoulders carefully. "In the hostelry I am forever sneezing, yet all the dust these two wretches have on them has not caused me to sneeze even once."

And he explained that the two strange beings whom we had encountered were members of the miserable (yet adequately fed) band of those who spent their nights exploring the innumerable cavities under the city of Rome in search of treasures. Not jewels or Roman statues, but the most holy relics of the saints and martyrs which abounded in the catacombs and tombs of the martyrs of the Holy Roman Church, disseminated throughout the length and breadth of the city.

"I do not understand," I broke in. "Are they really allowed to take these holy relics from the tombs?"

"Not only is it permitted: I daresay that it is even necessary," replied Abbot Melani with a hint of irony. "The places frequented by the first Christians are to be regarded as fertile ground for spiritual questing, and sometimes even hunting, ut ita dicam, by elevated souls."

Saint Philip Neri and Saint Carlo Borromeo had indeed been in the habit of praying in the catacombs, so the abbot reminded me. And at the end of the last century, a courageous Jesuit, a certain Antonio Bosio, had descended into the most recondite and obscure crevices and had explored all the cavities under Rome, making many marvellous discoveries and publishing a book entitled Roma Subterranea, which had met with great and general plaudits. The good Pope Gregory XV had, around 1620, laid down that the remains of saints were to be removed from the catacombs so that these precious relics could be distributed to churches throughout all Christendom, and he had instructed Cardinal Crescenzi to see to the implementation of this holy programme.

I turned towards the two bizarre manikins who were fussing around these human remains, emitting obscene grunts.

"I know it seems curious to you that a mission of such high spirituality should be entrusted to two such beings," continued Atto. "But you must bear in mind that descending into the catacombs and artificial grottoes, of which Rome has so many, is not to everyone's taste. One must enter dangerous places, cross watercourses, face the risk of rock-falls and collapsing galleries. And it takes a strong stomach to go rummaging among the corpses…"

"But they are just old bones."

"That is all too easily said, yet how did you react a few moments ago? Our two friends had just completed their round, as they explained to me while you lay half dead on the ground. In this cavity, they keep their collection. The catacombs are a long way off and there is no danger of encountering one of their competitors around here. So they were not expecting to meet with a living soul; and when we surprised them, they panicked and started to run in all directions. In the confusion, you came too near to their pile of bones and disturbed it, and it collapsed on top of you. And then you fainted."

I looked down and saw that the two strange little men had by now separated their bones from the vomit and had given them a quick cleaning. The little mountain under which I had been buried must have been far higher than myself; and now it all lay spread out on the ground. In reality, the human remains (a skull, a few long bones, and three vertebrae) were few when compared with all the remaining matter: earth, potsherds, stones, wood splinters, moss and roots, rags, all manner of rubbish. What, fuelled by fear, I had experienced as a deluge of death was but the contents of a sack filled by a peasant who had scraped too much from the soil of his little field.

"To exercise a dirty trade like this," the abbot continued, "you need a couple of characters like those whom you see before you. These tomb robbers are called corpisantari, after the sacred relics of saints for which they are always searching. If fortune does not smile upon them, they sell some rubbish to the next simpleton they meet. Have you not seen them, in front of your inn, selling Saint John's shoulder-blade or the jaw of Saint Catherine, feathers from angels' wings, splinters from the one True Cross borne by Our Lord? Well, the suppliers are our two friends, or their companions in the trade. When they are in luck, they find the tomb of some presumed martyr. Of course, those who reap the honours of translating the relics of Saint Etcetera to some church in Spain are the cardinals, or that old windbag Father Fabretti, whom Innocent X appointed, if I am not mistaken, custos reliquiarum ac coemeteriorum, the Custodian of Relics and Cemeteries."

"Where are we, Signor Abbot?" I asked, confused by our hostile and shadowy surroundings.

"I have mentally retraced the way we have covered and asked these two one or two questions. They call it the Archives, because this is where they heap up their ordure. I would say that we are more or less inside the ruins of the old stadium of Domitian, where during the Roman Empire they held sea battles, with ships. To make matters easier for you, I can tell you that we are under the Piazza Navona, at the end nearest the Tiber. If we had covered the distance from the inn to the same point on the surface, at a good walking pace, it would have taken no more than three minutes."

"So these ruins are from Roman times."

"But of course these are Roman ruins. Do you see those arches? They must be the old structures of the stadium where they held games and naval battles, above which were built the palazzi which now surround the Piazza Navona, following the old oblong design."

"As in the Circo Massimo?"

"Exactly: except that there, everything has remained visible; whereas here it was all buried under the weight of centuries. But you will see, sooner or later, they will excavate here too. There are things that cannot remain buried."

While he told me of matters that were utterly new to me, I was astonished to see for the first time shining in Abbot Melani's eyes the spark of fascination with art and antiquity, despite the fact that he was at that moment deeply involved in what would appear to be very different affairs. I had no way of knowing it at the time, but this inclination was to have not unimportant consequences in this and later adventures.

"Well, well, we should so like to be able to mention, one day, the names of our two nocturnal acquaintances."

"I am Ugonio," said the less runted of the twain.

Atto Melani looked questioningly at the other one.

"Gfrrrlubh," came the sound issuing from under his hood.

"And he is Ciacconio," said Ugonio, hastening to translate Ciac-conio's gurglings.

"Can he not speak?" insisted Abbot Melani.

"Gfrrrlubh," replied Ciacconio.

"I understand," said Atto, reining in his impatience. "We humbly beg your pardon for having disturbed your perambulations. But, now that I come to think of it, may I avail myself of this opportunity to inquire whether you have, by any chance, seen someone pass this way, a little while before our arrival?"

"Gfrrrlubh!" broke in Ciacconio.

"He has invisioned a presence," announced Ugonio.

"Tell him that we want to know everything," said I, butting in.

"Gfrrrlubh," repeated Ciacconio.

We looked questioningly at Ugonio.

"Ciacconio entrified the galleria whence your worships emergen- cied, and was espied there by one who held a lamp-light; whereupon Ciacconio regressed upon his feetsteps. But the lamp-lifter must have entrified a trap-portal, for he disapparitioned like smoke, and Ciacconio sought sanctity here, most alarmified."

"Could he not have told us himself?" asked Abbot Melani, somewhat taken aback.

"But he has now descripted and confessated it," replied Ugonio.

"Gfrrrlubh," confirmed Ciacconio, vaguely piqued.

Atto Melani and I looked at one another in some perplexity.

"Gfrrrlubh," continued Ciacconio, becoming animated, and seeming by his grunts proudly to claim that even he, a poor creature of darkness, could render himself more than useful.

As his companion was most opportunely to interpret for us, Ciacconio had, after the meeting with the stranger, carried out a second minute investigation of the gallery, because his curiosity was stronger than his fear.

"He is a great miner of other people's busyness," explained Ugonio, in the tones of one reiterating an old and worn reproof, "which leads him only into troubleness and misfortunity."

"Gfrrrlubh," broke in Ciacconio, fumbling through his coat in search of something.

Ugonio seemed to hesitate.

"What did he say?" I asked.

"Naught, or only that…"

Triumphantly, Ciacconio produced a screwed-up piece of paper. Ugonio grabbed his forearm and with lightning speed tore it from his hand.

"Hand it over to me or I shall blow your head off," said Abbot Melani calmly, reaching into his right-hand pocket in which he had placed the device with which he had already threatened the two corpisantari.

Ugonio slowly reached out and surrendered to my companion the paper which he had scrunched up into a ball. Then without warning he set to kicking and belabouring Ciacconio, calling him, "You sour saggy old scumskinned, batskinned, sow-skinned, scrunchbacked, sodomitic skinaflinter, you puking mewlbrat, you muddy-snouted, slavering, sarcophagous shitebeetle, you bumsquibcracking sicomoron, you slimy old scabmutcheon-shysteroo, you shittard, sguittard, crackard, filthard, lily-livered, lycanthropic, eunichon-bastradion-bumfodder-billicullion- ballockatso, you gorbellied doddipol, calflolly jobbernol, you grapple- snouted netherwarp, you clarty-frumpled, hummthrumming, tuzzle- wenching, placket-racket, dregbilly lepidopter, you gnat-snapping, weedgrubbing, blither-blather, bilge-bottled, ockham-cockam peder- aster," and other epithets which I had never heard before, yet which sounded somewhat grave and offensive to my ears.

Abbot Melani did not deign so much as to glance at these painful theatrics and spread out the sheet of paper on the ground, trying to restore it to its original appearance. I craned my neck and read with him. The left side and the right were, alas, badly torn and almost all of the title had been lost. Fortunately, the remainder of the page was perfectly readable:

"It is a page from the Bible," said I with complete assurance.

"I think so too," the abbot agreed, turning the paper in his hand. "I should say that it is…"

"Malachi," I guessed without hesitation, thanks to the fragment of a name in the upper margin which had almost completely survived recent events.

On the back there was no printing whatsoever but an unmistakable bloodstain (which I had already seen through the page). More blood covered what must be part of a title or heading.

"I think that I understand," said Abbot Melani, turning to Ugonio who was inflicting his last, listless kicks upon Ciacconio.

"What have you understood?"

"Our two little monsters thought they had made a good find."

He proceeded to explain to me that, for the corpisantari, the most precious booty came, not from the mere sepulchres of early Christians, but from the glorious tombs of saints and martyrs. It was, however, not easy to recognise these. The criterion for identifying such tombs had caused a never-ending dispute, which had dragged no few learned churchmen into endless controversies. According to Bosio, the bold Jesuit explorer of subterranean Rome, martyrs could be distinguished by symbols such as palms, crowns and vases containing grain or flames of fire, carved upon their tombs. But absolute proofs were glass or terracotta ampoules-found in tombs or sealed with mortar into their outer walls-containing a reddish liquid which was generally regarded as the holy blood of the martyrs. This burning question was long-debated and a special commission eventually cleared the air of all uncertainties, ruling that pabnam et cas illorum sanguine tinctum pro signis certissimis habendas esse.

"In other words," concluded Atto Melani, "images of palms, but above all the presence of a small ampoule full of red liquid, were a sure sign that one was in the presence of the remains of a hero of the Faith."

"So these phials must be very valuable," I suggested.

"Of course, and not all of them are handed over to the ecclesiastical authorities. After all, any Roman can dedicate himself to the search for antiquities: all he needs is an authorisation from the Pope (Prince Scipione Borghese, for instance, did it, perhaps because the Pope was his uncle) and he can dig, and all he then needs is to find some obliging Doctor of the Church to authenticate any remains that are brought to light. After that, if he is not consumed by devotion, he will sell it. But there is no test to distinguish the true from the false. Whoever finds some fragment of a body can always claim that it is a relic of a martyr. If this were only a problem of money, one could pass over the matter. The fact is that these fragments are blessed and become objects of adoration, the object of pilgrimages, and so on."

"And has no one ever tried to clarify matters?" I asked incredulously.

The Society of Jesus has always enjoyed special facilities for excavating the catacombs, and has arranged the transport of various bodies and relics to Spain, where the holy remains are received in great pomp, and end up all over the world, even as far away as the Indies. In the end, however, the followers of Saint Ignatius themselves came to the conclusion, and confessed as much to the Pontiff, that there was no guarantee that such relics really did belong to saints and martyrs. There were cases, such as the corpses of children, in which proof was difficult. Thus the Jesuits were compelled to ask that the principle of adoremus quod scimus be introduced: only relics which can scientifically or reasonably be proved to have belonged to a saint or a martyr should be objects of veneration."

That was why, explained Atto Melani, it was eventually decided that only ampoules of blood could provide conclusive proof.

"And thus," concluded the abbot, "even ampoules are destined to enrich the corpisantari and to end up in some chamber of marvels or in the apartments of some very rich and very naive merchant."

"Why naive?"

"Because no one can swear that what the phials contain is the blood of martyrs, or even blood at all. I have examined one, purchased at great cost from a disgusting individual similar to… What is he called? Ciacconio."

"And what did you conclude?"

"That the reddish mud in the ampoule, watered down a little, consisted mostly of brownish earth and flies."

The problem was, explained Abbot Melani, returning to the present, that Ciacconio, after bumping into our thief, had found this page from the Bible stained with what showed every appearance of being blood.

"And finding, or better, selling the beginning of a chapter from the Bible stained with the blood of Saint Calixtus, to name but a name, can bring in plenty of money. That is why his friend is gently reproving him for having revealed to us the existence of the sheet of paper."

"But how is it possible," I protested, "that the thousand-year-old blood of a martyr could be found on a modern printed book?"

"I shall answer you with a story, which I heard last year in Versailles. A fellow in the market was trying to sell a skull which was, he guaranteed, that of the famous Cromwell. One of the would-be buyers pointed out to him that the skull was too small to be that of the great leader, who notoriously had a rather large head."

"And what did the vendor reply?"

"He replied: 'Of course, this was the skull of Cromwell as a child!' That skull, I am assured, was sold-and at a price. Think of it, Ugonio and Ciacconio should have no trouble selling their scrap of Bible stained with the blood of Saint Calixtus."

"Shall we return the page to them, Signor Atto?"

"Not for the time being," said he, raising his voice and turning to the corpisantari. "We shall hold onto it and we shall return it to them only when they have done us a couple of favours."

And he explained what we needed.

"Gfrrrlubh," assented Ciacconio, in the end.

Once he had imparted their instructions to the corpisantari, who vanished into the darkness, Atto Melani decided that it was time to return to the Donzello.

At that juncture, I asked him whether he did not find it somewhat strange to discover in these galleries a bloodstained page of the Bible.

"That page, in my view, was lost by the thief of your little pearls," was his only reply.

"And how can you be so sure of that?"

"I did not say that I was sure. But think for one moment: the paper seems to be new. The bloodstain (if it is blood, and I think so) does not seem old. It is too vivid. Ciacconio found it, if he was telling-sorry, if he was gurgling-the truth, immediately after his meeting with a stranger in the gallery into which the thief disappeared. Does that not suffice for you? And if we speak of the Bible, who does that bring to mind for you?"

"Padre Robleda."

"Precisely: a Bible smacks of priests."

"Still, the meaning of some details escapes me," I objected.

"What are you getting at?"

"'-primum ' is all that remains of 'Caput primum\ while ' Malach? is clearly what remains of 'Malachiae’. This made me think that under the bloodstain there must have been the word 'profetia'. So here we have the chapter of the Bible concerning the prophet Malachi," I observed, remembering the lessons received during my almost monastic childhood. "However, I cannot understand the 'nda' in the first line at the top. Have you any idea, Signor Atto? I have none whatever."

Abbot Melani shrugged his shoulders: "I certainly cannot claim to be an expert on the matter."

I found such a profession of ignorance concerning the Bible singular, coming from an abbot. And, when I came to think of it, his affirmation that "a Bible smacks of priests" sounded strangely crude. What kind of an abbot was he?

Meanwhile, we were returning into the conduit, and Melani had resumed his considerations. "Anyone can possess a Bible, indeed the inn has at least one, is that not so?"

"Certainly, two, to be precise; but I know both of them well and the page which you are holding could not have come from either."

"Of course. But you will agree with me that the page could have come from the Bible of any one of the guests at the Donzello, who might easily have brought a copy of the Scriptures with him on his travels. It is a pity that the tear has removed the ornate initial capital that opens the chapter, which surely comes from the beginning of a chapter in the Book of Malachi, and which would have helped us to trace the origin of our find."

I did not agree with him: there were other strange things about that paper, and I pointed them out to him: "Have you ever seen a page from the Bible printed on one side only, like this one?"

"It must be the end of a chapter."

"But the chapter has hardly begun!"

"Perhaps the prophecy of Malachi is unusually brief. We cannot know, the last lines have been torn off, too. Or perhaps it is common printing practice, or an error, who knows? Be that as it may, Ugonio and Ciacconio, too, will give us a hand: they are too afraid that they will never see their filthy scrap of paper again."

"Speaking of fear, I did not know that you had a pistol," said I, remembering the firearm with which he had threatened the two corpisantari.

"Nor did I know that I had one," he replied, looking at me obliquely with a wry grin, and he drew from his pocket the shining wooden metal-tipped barrel, of which the stock seemed to have disappeared inexplicably in Melani's hand when he brandished the instrument.

"A pipe!" I exclaimed. But how is it possible that Ugonio and Ciacconio did not see that?"

"The light was poor, and my face was threatening enough. And perhaps the two corpisantari did not wish to find out how much harm I could do them."

I was stupefied by the simplicity of the stratagem, by the nonchalance with which the abbot had carried it off and by its unexpected success.

"And what if one's adversaries should suspect that it is not a pistol?"

"Do as I did, when I faced two bandits one night in Paris. Yell with all your might 'Ceci nest pas une pipe!"' replied Abbot Melani, laughing.