Another, who was naked with the exception of a cloth round his loins, was bound to a stake and pierced full of arrows, _a la_ St. Sebastian. Another, who had been sawn asunder lengthways, was held together by pieces of rope. One gentleman, who had been skinned alive for the holy faith, was a most unsightly object, and reminded me of those anatomical figures you see in doctors' shops. Whenever he moved, the working of his anatomy was most painfully visible, and he wore his skin over his left arm like an overcoat. There was another, who had evidently been burnt, for he was as black as a cinder, and presented a most woe-begone aspect. A sixth had probably been torn to pieces by some wild beast, for his flesh bore the print of talons, and here and there hung in long strips, while a seventh had been broken on the wheel, and seemed capable of bending his body into the most impossible positions. My blood ran cold at such a spectacle, and turning to my guide, I asked the meaning of this strange sight. She informed me that they were all spirits of early Christians who had suffered martyrdom. "Then why," I asked, "are they not in Paradise instead of celebrating mass here in these catacombs?" The reason she gave me was that they had all been massacred in their sin, and their spirits not being yet pure enough to enter the realms of eternal bliss, they were, like herself, doomed to go through their religious duties as on earth, until masses should be said for their deliverance. This, she told me, was her object in leading me here--that I might see the misery of these wretched spirits, and pray for them. I promised I would do so, and mass being finished, she introduced me to the skinned gentleman, whom, she informed me, was her lover. He bowed, grinned horribly, and offered me his anatomical hand, after which I had a word with each of the spirits in turn, and then prepared to take my departure. "_Ora pro nobis!_" they all cried at once.