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behind the utensils. Panting, he asked me to help him shift the piece of furniture.

The operation was not too difficult. The abbot seemed not at all surprised by the revelation which met our eyes; half-hidden by the dirt which time's disrespectful hand had spread over the wall, there emerged the outline of a door.

'Here you are,' he exclaimed, satisfied.

And without flinching, he gave a push on the door; the old hinges squealed.

The first thing that I noticed was a damp, cold draught blowing in my face. Before our eyes, an obscure cavity opened up.

'He went into there,' I concluded, stating the obvious.

'That does indeed appear to be the case,' replied the abbot, peering apprehensively over the brink. 'This wretched little closet had a double wall. Would you care to enter first?'

My silence spoke for itself.

'Very well,' conceded Atto, reaching forward with his lantern to show the way. 'It is always up to me to resolve everything.'

Hardly had he spoken than I saw him clutch desperately at the old door which he had just opened, pulled down by an irresistible force.

'Help me, quickly,' he called.

It was a well, and Melani was about to fall into it, with consequences which would surely have been fatal. He had just managed to hold onto the doorpost with his legs dangling in the voracious darkness opening beneath us. When he had climbed back, thanks to my feeble support, we found ourselves in the dark. The abbot had let go of the lantern, which had been swallowed up by the black hole. So I went to fetch another one from my chamber, which I took care to lock. Pellegrino was sleeping peacefully, happily unaware-thought I-of what was going on in his hostelry.

When I returned, Atto was lowering himself into the hole. He showed himself to be unusually agile for his age. As I often had cause to note thereafter, he possessed a kind of controlled but fluid vigour of the nerves, which constantly sustained him.

It was not really a well, as he showed me, waving the lantern, for in the wall was set a series of iron supports rather like steps, which permitted a cautious descent. We climbed down gingerly into the vertical aperture, not without some trepidation. The descent did not last long: soon we were standing on a rough brick platform. We looked around us, pointing the lantern, and found that the way down was not cut off but continued on one of the short sides of the landing with a stone stairway around a square shaft. We leaned over, trying in vain to descry the bottom of this stairwell.

'We are under the closet, my boy.'

I responded with a feeble moan in lieu of comment, seeing that this was of little consolation to me.

We went on in silence. This time, the descent seemed to be without end, also because of a fine slimy film which covered everything and rendered our progress quite perilous. At a certain point, the stairway changed completely in appearance; excavated from the tufa, it became exceedingly narrow and correspondingly uneven. The air had become dense, a sure sign that we were underground.

We continued our descent until we found ourselves in a dark and sinister gallery dug out of the damp earth: our only company, the dense air and the silence. I was afraid.

'This is where our thief went,' whispered Abbot Melani.

'Why do you speak so quietly?'

'He could be nearby. I want to be the one to surprise him, not the contrary.'

However, the thief was not a few paces off, nor was he beyond that. We proceeded along the gallery, in which Abbot Melani had to walk bending down because of the ceiling-if that it could be called-which was low and rather irregular. He watched me move easily in front of him: 'For once I envy you, my boy.'

We advanced very slowly along a pathway occasionally made compact by stones and bricks scattered haphazardly here and there. We continued a few dozen paces further, during which the abbot responded to my mute but foreseeable curiosity.

'This passage must have been built to enable one to emerge unseen at some remote point in the city.'

'In times of pestilence, perhaps?'

'I think a long, long time before that. It will never have failed to be useful in a city like this. Perhaps it has been used by some Roman prince to unleash his men upon a rival. Roman families have always hated and fought one another with all their might. When the German mercenaries sacked Rome, some households helped them to plunder the city, so long as they struck only at their rivals. It is possible that our inn may originally have served as the headquarters of groups of assassins and cutthroats. Perhaps at the service of the Orsini, who own many houses in the neighbourhood.'

'But who built the tunnel?'

'Look at the walls,' said the abbot, bringing his lantern close to the side of the gallery. 'The stone appears to be rather ancient.'

'As ancient as the catacombs?'

'Perhaps. I know that in the past decades, a learned priest explored the cavities to be found in several places in Rome, and discovered and made drawings of innumerable tombs and remains of saints and martyrs. In any case, it is certain that beneath the houses and piazzas of several quarters there are passages and galleries, sometimes built by the ancient Romans, sometimes excavated in periods closer to our own.

'I have heard tell of an underground labyrinth built in Sicily by the great Emperor Frederick, the corridors of which conceal rods which, if trodden upon, release metal grates which fall from above and imprison visitors, or sharp blades which, propelled from invisible slits, are capable of wounding and killing passers-by. Other mechanisms suddenly open up deep wells into which those unwary of such dangers are unfailingly cast. Quite accurate plans have been drawn of some catacombs. It is said that under the ground in Naples, there also exist a surprising number of subterranean passages, but I have no experience there, whereas I have made a few visits to those in Paris, which are certainly quite extensive. I know too that in Piedmont in the last century, near to a place called Rovasenda, hundreds of peasants were ambushed by French soldiers who chased them into some caverns which were to be found near a river. It is said that none left those grottoes alive, neither the assailants nor the assailed.'

'Signor Pellegrino never spoke to me of the existence of this passage,' I whispered.

'I can believe that. It is not something to be revealed unless it is essential. And probably he himself does not know all its secrets, seeing that he has not been in charge of this inn for very long.'

'Then, how did the person who stole the keys find this passage?'

'Perhaps your good master gave in to an offer of money. Or of Muscat wine,' sneered the abbot.

While we advanced, I gradually felt myself overcome by a sensation of oppression in my breast and in my head. The obscure wandering on which we had ventured led in an unknown direction: in all likelihood, one that portended many dangers. The darkness, broken only by the oil lantern which Abbot Melani carried before him, was frightful and ominous. The walls of the gallery, because of the tortuous course they followed, made it impossible to look straight in front of us and caused us to foresee some disagreeable surprise with every step we took. And what if the thief had seen the light of our lantern from afar, and was waiting behind some projection to ambush us? I thought, shivering, of the perils populating the galleries of which Abbot Melani knew. No one would ever recover our bodies. The guests at the inn would have a hard time convincing the men-at-arms that I and the abbot had fled from the place, perhaps jumping from some window at night.

Even today, I could not say how long our exploration lasted. At the end, we noticed that the underground passage which had initially led us ever deeper, was gradually beginning to ascend.

'There,' said Abbot Melani. 'Perhaps we are about to emerge somewhere.'

My feet hurt and the damp was beginning to sink its clutches into me. For a while we had not spoken, wanting only to see the end of that dreadful cavern. I was seized by terror when I saw the abbot stumble with a groan on something, almost falling, almost losing his grip on the lantern; to have lost our only source of light would have made our stay down there a nightmare. I rushed forward to support him. With an expression of mixed fury and relief, the abbot cast light on the obstacle. A flight of steps led upwards, as steep as they were narrow. We climbed them almost crawling, so as not to risk falling backwards. During the ascent, a series of curves forced Atto to squeeze through painfully. I, for once, was doing better. Atto looked at me: 'I really envy you, my boy,' he repeated