Nearer came the approaching feet, and soon the light of torches could be seen by us dimly in the distance.
Then he of the broad shoulders appeared, accompanied by a guard of armed men. The seal of our prison was cut asunder, the door opened, we were loosed from our chains, and cords were bound about our wrists. Then a sign to follow was given, and we went forth.
We passed from the temple into the street, and so on through many other streets, until we halted before a great building, whose walls were set with marbles of rare tints, and embellished with silver that glistened in the moonlight.
No time was given us to look and wonder; the massive gates swung open, and we went within. From Lestrade and myself there broke an exclamation of wonder, for we had come from darkness into the brightness of a hall, the like of which is not, I verily believe, in all Africa.
For a little the glare was blinding, but soon my eyes became used to the light, and I began to look attentively about me.
This then is what I saw. The audience room was brilliant with thousands of torches that hung from silver sockets set in the wall, and depending also from pillars of carved wood that held up the roof. These torches burned clearly and with a sweet smell, and their light was shed on a countless multitude of men that lined the room itself.
The walls, too, of this great hall, though of stone, were enriched with panels of rare woods in pink and in amber, polished like the supporting pillars to a rare excellence of mirror-like brightness.
The floor was fashioned of huge blocks of marble set close and in a curious pattern, and covered towards the centre with a silk rug woven with pictures of strange beasts and birds like to those carved upon the temple we had just left.
The corners of this room were filled with plants bearing vivid flowers that gave forth a strong but very sweet scent. One end of this strange apartment was fenced off from what might be called the outer court, by a silver screen of fine open-work. Opposite this, at the further end, stood a low chair of ebony, round which coiled a carven serpent wrought in the same black wood, but with scales overlaid also in silver.
On this seat, or throne, I beheld the aged man who had commanded the force that had captured us, and whom I felt must be the High Priest of the dread god Hed.