I was alone in an immense hall ornamented with colored marbles and hung with colored lights, but quite bare of furniture of any kind. At one end of this apartment hung a heavy curtain embroidered with mystic symbols in both gold and silver.
Soft music and the rippling laughter of women came faintly from beyond, and without more ado I pressed forward, for the sound was strangely sweet and inviting to a man perilously encompassed with dangers as I was.
I found that the tapestry of which I have spoken hid another door. This stood ajar, and I entered without mishap into the next chamber.
You, Dering, cold Puritan that you are, cannot imagine the delight that filled my heart as I stood on that threshold and gazed about me.
Every sad thought fled on the instant, for I had strayed before my time into Mahomet’s paradise, and the houris that inhabit it were not wanting.
That room, Dering, was lovely beyond a poet’s dream and rich above a miser’s wildest hopes. But it was not the room, beautiful as it was, that caught and held me spellbound. It was the multitude of fair and gracious women that it contained, each one a rare and perfect flower, and each bending low in welcome and a kind of worship, as I approached. The foremost—a tall, willowy creature, Dering, with blue-black waving mass of hair and glorious violet eyes—advanced and kneeling bade me look upon her and her companions as my slaves.
“For seven days it is our mission to do you homage,” said she; “for seven days you are our lord, and your pleasure, ours.”
Then as she paused, I gallantly, as became a gentleman, raised her up and taking the thread of her discourse, I said:—
“And the seven days passing, what then, loveliest of women?”
But she pointed back to the way by which I had come.