The Argosy, Vol. XXIV, No. 3 — page 158: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

A CONSPIRACY OF THE CATACOMBS. The adventure that befellan American tourist who sought an escape from beaten paths—A rescue from the horrors of starvation succeeded by a peril which causes keen suspense, : and which is thought to be safely conquered when it again confronts the victim with a tragic fate. VW HEN Walter Safford was abroad he despised the hackneyed haunts of tourists and had a holy horror of excursions planned by Baedeker. He regarded the conscientious sightseeing practised by most Americans as proof of a prosaic if not a vulgar mind. It was his habit to follow the bent of his own fancy and happen on the usual things by chance, if at all. It was this idiosyncrasy that led him into a very foolish trip to the catacombs in Rome. These subterranean passages extend for miles, following no regular plan, but branching and intersecting at random. They all look exactly alike, and even the occasional chapels, where the early Christians held their services and buried their dead secure from pagan persecution, have little to distinguish them one from another. No trackless forest or fabled labyrinth could be more confusing than this network of dark, damp, indistinguishable burrowings. Well knowing the character of the catacombs and the number of unfor- tunates who have gone astray and starved to death there, the paternal Italian government has sealed up all the entrances to the underground city but one, and that one is strictly guarded. At stated times an official guide conducts parties through this entrance. No one is allowed to enter except so attended. Even then, the guide take his parties over a very short and stereotyped route, mistakes on his part being made impossible by having every passageway roped across except the one he is to follow. - Now that was the sort of thing Walter Safford specially abhorred, so he resolved, unless chance favored him, to let these underground attractions alone. But chance did favor him. An old peasant with whom he was chat- ting in the Campagna told him how a washout and cave-in on his farm the night before had opened up the catacombs. A small gratuity easily induced him to point out the place. Safford was enchanted. Here was an entrance all his own to an absolutely unexplored region. He laid in a stock of matches and candles, put a compass in his pocket, and by means of a rope, swung himself down. He started on his explorations in the highest spirits. ‘‘ All I have to do is to keep in one line, say straight north, and when IJ turn around I will go straight south, which must infallibly bring me back.’ Of course the passages did not run exactly that way, so he took the one that led zearest north at each branching. He walked for an hour, stopping a few minutes to examine a crude bit of frescoing on a chapel wall and a sar- G =) (2) = a IDOOKS