"Lordy!" muttered Zenas Wright under his breath to Ensign Brooks as they crossed the hall. "Give me a pick and a ladder and a half hour alone in which to use them, and you may have and welcome the rubies of Sardanes which went down with the Minnetonka."
Near a fountain, the jets of which fell and flowed over a grotto of opalescent glass lighted from within, sat the master of all this splendor, Bel-Ar, king of Maeronica and lord of the underseas. On no raised dais or lofty throne sat this monarch who was absolute in his own land. A high-backed chair of carved black wood sufficed him, raised from the flooring on a single slab of red porphyry, scarcely twelve inches high. On another chair at his right sat his queen. The two were in the center of a wide crescent of seats and benches, whereon sat the nobles and ladies of Maeronica who made up the court. Without the semicircle stood attendants and slaves. Farther back, ranged in a double line, was one full company, one hundred men, of the palace guard, all in bronze mail, and each carrying his bared sword.
Like a dull moth among a concourse of gaudy and fluttering butterflies was this powerful Maeronican king. He was attired simply in cloth of dark blue. A cloak of the same material had fallen back from his shoulders. On his knee rested a flat black cap of the same pattern that his meanest sailors wore. Only a light circlet of twisted gold, fashioned in the semblance of a slender serpent, set on his heavy black hair above his temples, and a short, broad sword which swung at his belt, distinguished the garb of Bel-Ar from that of the ordinary citizen of Adlaz.
Seeing these things, one looked into the king's face for royalty, and found it there. He sat with an elbow on the arm of his chair, his chin cupped in his right hand, so that it hid his mouth. His forehead was broad and low, his nose short and tilted slightly at its tip. His cheeks were rounded and well-shaped. His ears, almost hidden in the black hair, which was cut evenly around his neck, were small and delicately turned as a woman's. But every other feature was cast into insignificance and forgotten, when one looked at the king's eyes. Set far apart, they were extraordinarily large, and black, so that iris and pupil seemed as one. They were the eyes of a mystic, a far-seeing dreamer, but filled with subdued fires; eyes of a strong and self-willed man, one not to be tampered with or led. In contrast to them, the skin of the face was fair, almost pallid. The king's figure was above medium height, broad and powerfully framed. His years were not more than thirty-seven.
As the prisoners were brought near to him, Bel-Ar had fallen into a fit of abstraction. He gazed fixedly across the hall, seeing it not, nor its people and its walls. At his feet a little slave boy sat asleep, his head leaned against the leg of his king's chair, his small golden harp fallen across his lap.
If Bel-Ar was the dull moth, his consort, Queen Raissa, who sat beside him, was the most gorgeous of all the butterflies. She was younger than the king, by a full ten years. Her face was small and flower-like, with pouting lips and proud blue eyes that shone like stars. Hair yellow as the golden, shell-shaped comb which was set in it, was piled high on her head, and was yet in such abundance that two heavy braids fell down across her shoulders. She was robed in a graceful gown of pale blue, the bodice of which blazed with gems. Her fingers toyed with a costly fan, whereof the stem was ivory and the sticks the colored plumes of rare birds. She gazed curiously at the strangers whom the soldiers brought in, and when her eyes alighted upon Oleric they became eager.
At the edge of the open space just beyond the semicircle of the courtiers, the guards halted. For a few moments the silence in the hall was broken only by the low-toned gossip of gay lords and ladies, who paid scant attention to guards or prisoners. Then the queen touched Bel-Ar's knee with her fan and spoke a few words in his ear. He started from his reverie.
"Come hither, Brunar," he said in a deep, low voice. As he raised his head, it was to be seen that his chin was square and heavy, but that his mouth was lacking in the strength of his other features.
Brunar made his report, and was replaced by Oleric the Red, who bowed low before the king, his ready smile playing about his lips.