Sir Phillip Warren, having issued these injunctions, hastened into the inner apartments to amend his toilette after his evening's stroll; and in a short time he came forth again, with knee-breeches and silk stockings, all ready to attend upon the king. In passing through the ante-chamber he repeated his command that the Black should await his return; and the latter promised to obey.
When left alone, this individual seated himself, and gave way to his reflections, forgetting for a time where he was. At length he started up, looked at his watch, and found that upwards of half-an-hour had elapsed since the old courtier had left him. He was already wearied of waiting; but a natural love of adventure and of the excitement of novelty induced him to remain a little longer to see the issue of the affair which had led him thither. He accordingly whiled away another half hour with a newspaper which lay on the table; and, that interval having passed, he began to think of taking his departure without farther delay.
Issuing from the ante-room, he proceeded along a well-lighted corridor, from the extremity of which branched off two smaller passages, one to the right, and the other to the left. The Blackamoor was now at a loss which path to pursue; for he could not, for the life of him, remember by which passage the old courtier had led him on his arrival an hour previously.
He was not, however, a man at all capable of hesitating to explore even a royal palace, in order to find a mode of egress, when it did not suit him to wait for the return of his guide: and taking the passage to the right, he hastened on until he reached a pair of colossal folding doors. Perfectly recollecting to have passed through those doors on his arrival—or at all events through folding-doors exactly like them—he pushed them open, and entered a large ante-room, well lighted, and containing four marble statues as large as life.
"Now," thought the Blackamoor, "I am mistaken; for I do not remember to have seen those statues as I followed the old gentleman into the palace just now. And yet I might have passed through this room without noticing them. At all events, I well recollect those large and splendid folding-doors; and so I must be right."
It happened, however, that he was altogether wrong in the path which he had pursued in order to find an egress from the palace; and he was deceived by the fact that at each end of the long passage, from the middle of which the corridor branched off, there were folding-doors of an uniform shape, size, and appearance. But, conceiving himself to be in the right road, he crossed the ante-room, and, pushing open a door at the farther extremity, found himself in a magnificent apartment, the furniture of which was of the French fashion of King Louis the Fifteenth's time. The hangings and drapery were of crimson velvet, of which material the cushions of the chairs and the sofas were also made. Several fine pictures, by old masters, and vast mirrors with elaborately decorated frames, graced the walls; and the whole was displayed by a rich, subdued, golden lustre, diffused throughout the room by lamps, the globes of which were of very thick ground glass. It was a mellow light, sufficient, yet without glare—misty, without being positively dim—and calculated to produce a lulling sensation of voluptuous indolence, rather than to dazzle the eyes with a wakeful brilliancy. In fact, there was altogether something ineffably luxurious in the general appearance of this apartment, which was magnificent without being spacious, and the perfumed atmosphere of which stole like a delicious languor on the senses.
The Blackamoor forgot for a few moments that he was an intruder—or, if he remembered the fact, he was indifferent to it: and, though the instant he entered this apartment he saw that he had indeed taken a wrong path, yet he could not help advancing farther into it to admire its sumptuous elegance and fine pictures. He was thus gratifying his curiosity, when he heard voices in the ante-room through which he had just passed; and, obeying a natural impulse, he slipped behind the rich velvet curtains drawn over the immense window, near which he happened to be standing at the moment.
The door opened, and two persons entered the apartment.
"I will await her here, Warren," said one, in a commanding and triumphant tone: "and see that during our interview, we are secured against interruption of any kind."
"Your Majesty shall be obeyed," answered Sir Phillip. "Have you any farther orders, sire?"