His guide set off at a rapid pace. When they were near the great arch leading into the garden they halted in front of a small door in a dimly-lighted building, and the native rapped twice with his knuckles on three separate panels. Some bolts were drawn and the two were admitted, the door being instantly barred behind them by an attendant. The darkness in the passage was impenetrable. Frank held himself tensely, but his companion’s voice reached him from a little distance in front, while he heard other bolts being drawn.
“You will see your way more clearly now,” was the reassuring message, and when the second door was opened the rays of a lamp lit the stone walls and floor. They went on, through lofty corridors, across sequestered gardens and by way of many a stately chamber until another narrow passage terminated in a barred door, guarded by an armed native. The man’s shrill voice betokened his calling, and Frank knew that he was standing at the entrance to the zenana.
“There is one other within,” said the guard, leering at them.
“Who is it, slave?” asked Frank’s guide scornfully, for he was annoyed by the eunuch’s familiar tone.
“Nay, I obey orders,” was the tart response. “Enter, then, and may Allah prosper you.”
There was a hint of danger in the otherwise excellent wish, but the man unlocked the door, and they passed within.
Frank’s wondering eyes rested on a scene of fairy-like beauty, so exquisite in its colorings and so unexpected withal, that not even his desperate predicament could repress for an instant the feeling of astonishment that overwhelmed him. He was standing in a white marble chamber, pillared and roofed in the Byzantine style, while every shaft and arch was chiseled into graceful lines and adorned with traceries or carved festoons of fruit and flowers. The walls were brightened with mosaics wrought in precious stones. Texts from the Koran in the flowing Persi-Arabic script, ran above the arches. In the floor, composed of colored tiles, was set a pachisi[24] board, as the wide entrance hall to a European house might have a chess-board incorporated with the design of the tiled floor.
Not a garish tint or inharmonious line interfered with the chaste elegance of the white marble, and the whole apartment, which seemed to be the ante-room of the ladies’ quarters, was lighted with Moorish lamps.