At every step folk carrying lamps came to meet them. By the flickering light Anatolius read with curiosity on one of these stone flags: "Dorotheus, son of Felix, in this place of coolness, light, and peace, reposes" ("_requiescit in loco refrigii, luminis, pacis_"). On another: "Brethren, disturb not my deep slumber." The style of the inscriptions was radiant and happy: "Sophronia, beloved, thou art alive for ever in God" ("_Sophronia, dulcis, semper vivis Deo_"). And a little farther on: "_Sophronia vivis!_" ("Sophronia, thou livest!") as if he who had written these words had at length realised that there was no more death. Nowhere was it written "He is buried here," but only "Here is laid for a certain time" (_depositus_). It seemed as if millions of people, generation upon generation, were lying in this place, not dead, but fallen asleep, all full of mysterious expectation. In the niches lamps were placed. They burned in the close atmosphere with a long steady flame and graceful vases exhaled penetrating odours. Nothing but the faint smell of putrefying bones, which escaped by fissures in the coffins, gave any hint of death. The passages went down lower and lower, curved as round an amphitheatre; and here and there in the ceiling a large aperture gave light from _luminaria_ opening on the country without. Sometimes a weak moon-ray passing down the _luminaria_ would strike at the bottom on a slab of marble covered with inscriptions. At the end of one of these passages they saw a sexton who, chanting gaily, was hollowing the ground with heavy blows of his pick. Several Christians were standing near the principal inspector of the tombs, the _fossor_. He was very well dressed and had a fat cunning face. The _fossor_ had inherited a right freely to dispose of a gallery of catacombs, and to sell unoccupied sites in his gallery, which was all the more appreciated because in it were buried the relics of St. Laurence. Although rich, the _fossor_ was keenly bargaining, as they came up, with a wealthy and miserly leather-merchant. Arsinoë stopped a moment to hear the discussion. "And my tomb will be far away from the relics?" the leather-dresser was asking mistrustfully, thinking of the big sum exacted by the _fossor_. "No, just six cubits away." "Above or beneath?" "On the right-hand side, sloping down a little. It's an excellent position; I don't ask a penny too much. Though you be as sinful as you please, everything will be forgiven. You will go straight into the heavenly kingdom." With an expert hand the gravedigger took the measurements for the tomb as a tailor measures for a coat, the leather-dresser insisting that he should have as much room as possible in order to lie in comfort. An old woman approached the sexton. "What do you want, mother?" "Here's the money--the extra payment!" "What extra payment?" "For the right-hand tomb." "Ah, I see; you don't want the crooked one?"