In fine, they both drew near enough to get as good a view of the spectre
as the smoky light of their torches, struggling with the massive gloom,
could supply.
The stranger was of exceedingly picturesque, and even melodramatic
aspect. He was clad in a voluminous cloak, that seemed to be made of a
buffalo's hide, and a pair of those goat-skin breeches, with the hair
outward, which are still commonly worn by the peasants of the Roman
Campagna. In this garb, they look like antique Satyrs; and, in truth,
the Spectre of the Catacomb might have represented the last survivor
of that vanished race, hiding himself in sepulchral gloom, and mourning
over his lost life of woods and streams.
Furthermore, he had on a broad-brimmed, conical hat, beneath the shadow
of which a wild visage was indistinctly seen, floating away, as it were,
into a dusky wilderness of mustache and beard. His eyes winked, and
turned uneasily from the torches, like a creature to whom midnight would
be more congenial than noonday.
On the whole, the spectre might have made a considerable impression
on the sculptor's nerves, only that he was in the habit of observing
similar figures, almost every day, reclining on the Spanish steps,
and waiting for some artist to invite them within the magic realm of
picture. Nor, even thus familiarized with the stranger's peculiarities
of appearance, could Kenyon help wondering to see such a personage,
shaping himself so suddenly out of the void darkness of the catacomb.
"What are you?" said the sculptor, advancing his torch nearer. "And how
long have you been wandering here?"
"A thousand and five hundred years!" muttered the guide, loud enough to
be heard by all the party. "It is the old pagan phantom that I told you
of, who sought to betray the blessed saints!"
"Yes; it is a phantom!" cried Donatello, with a shudder. "Ah, dearest
signorina, what a fearful thing has beset you in those dark corridors!"
"Nonsense, Donatello," said the sculptor. "The man is no more a phantom
than yourself. The only marvel is, how he comes to be hiding himself in
the catacomb. Possibly our guide might solve the riddle."
The spectre himself here settled the point of his tangibility, at all
events, and physical substance, by approaching a step nearer, and laying
his hand on Kenyon's arm.
"Inquire not what I am, nor wherefore I abide in the darkness," said he,
in a hoarse, harsh voice, as if a great deal of damp were clustering in
his throat. "Henceforth, I am nothing but a shadow behind her footsteps.
She came to me when I sought her not. She has called me forth, and must
abide the consequences of my reappearance in the world."
"Holy Virgin! I wish the signorina joy of her prize," said the guide,
half to himself. "And in any case, the catacomb is well rid of him."