We stepped between them, and found
ourselves in an exactly similar gallery to that which led to our own
apartments, only this passage was, comparatively speaking, brilliantly
lighted. A few paces down it we were met by four mutes--two men and two
women--who bowed low and then arranged themselves, the women in front
and the men behind of us, and in this order we continued our procession
past several doorways hung with curtains resembling those leading to
our own quarters, and which I afterwards found opened out into chambers
occupied by the mutes who attended on _She_. A few paces more and we
came to another doorway facing us, and not to our left like the others,
which seemed to mark the termination of the passage. Here two more
white-, or rather yellow-robed guards were standing, and they too
bowed, saluted, and let us pass through heavy curtains into a great
antechamber, quite forty feet long by as many wide, in which some eight
or ten women, most of them young and handsome, with yellowish hair, sat
on cushions working with ivory needles at what had the appearance of
being embroidery frames.
Pages:
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268