midnight
For hours he wandered on and on till , faint with hunger , parched with thirst , the throbbings , of his heart shaking his unnerved frame , he fell into a merciful swoon from which he never awoke . Centuries after , an explorer of this vast necropolis found crouching in the corner of one of its chambers a fleshless skeleton , and on the tomb above he read the words , VALERIA DORMIT IN PACE . Was it accident or Providence , or some strange instinct of locality that had brought this poor blighted wreck to breathe his latest sigh at the tomb of one whom he had so loved and so wronged ? The peasants of the Campagna tell to the present day of certain strange sounds heard at midnight from those hollow vaults -- at times like the hooting of an owl , at times like the wailing of the wind , and at times , they whisper with bated breath , like the moaning of a soul in pain . And the guides to the Catacombs aver , that ever on the anniversary of the martyrdom of Valeria Callirhoë , sighs and groans echo through the hollow vaults -- the sighs and groans , tradition whispers , of a wretched apostate who in the ages of persecution betrayed the early Christians to a martyr 's doom . -LSB- Illustration : ROMAN COLUMRARIUM The Columbaria were the Pagan Roman underground sepulchres . In the many niche-like dovecots -- hence the name were placed the urns containing the ashes of the dead whose bodies had been burned on the funeral pile . -RSB-