He paused, finding himself before the entrance to the Gallery of Inscriptions.
Again he listened.

Profound silence.

An inward voice seemed to say to him: "Mount the steps.

Enter!" Fearlessly he mounted the five steps.
The Via Appia of the Vatican, as broad, perhaps, as the ancient way, contained not a single lamp.

At regular intervals pale streaks of light lay across the pavement, falling through the windows, which, from among the tombstones, the cippi, and the pagan sarcophagi, look down upon Rome.