e of the prisoners.

The crowd in the street being great, the march was stopped under a house
taller than the rest; in the balcony one lady alone was seated, the
others stood round her as if they were her handmaidens. This lady was
most richly dressed, young, and very beautiful and stately, and was,
indeed, the king's daughter, Ariadne. She looked grave and full of pity,
and, as Theseus happened to glance upwards, their eyes met, and remained
fixed on each other. Theseus, who had never thought much about girls
before, grew pale, for he had never seen so beautiful a maiden: Ariadne
also turned pale, and then blushed and looked away, but her eyes glanced
down again at Theseus, and he saw it, and a strange feeling came into
his heart.

The guards cleared the crowd, and they all marched on till they came to
the palace walls and gate, which were more beautiful even than the walls
of the town. But the greatest wonder of all was the palace, standing in
a wide park, and itself far greater than such towns as Theseus had seen,
Troezene, or Aphidnae, or Athens. There was a multitude of roofs of
various heights, endless roofs, endless windows, terraces, and gardens:
no king's palace of our times is nearly so great and strong. There were
fountains and flowers and sweet-smelling trees in blossom, and, when the
Athenians were led within the palace, they felt lost among the winding
passages and halls.

The walls of them were painted with pictures of flying fishes, above a
clear white sea, in which fish of many kinds were swimming, with the
spray and bubbles flying from their tails, as the sea flows apart from
the rudder of a ship. There were pictures of bull fights, men and girls
teasing the bull, and throwing somersaults over him, and one bull had
just tossed a girl high in the air. Ladies were painted in balconies,
looking on, just such ladies as had watched Theseus and his company; and
young men bearing tall cool vases full of wine were painted on other
walls; and others were decorated with figures of bulls and stags, in
hard plaster, fashioned marvellously, and standing out from the walls
'in relief,' as it is called. Other walls, again, were painted with
patterns of leaves and flowers.

The rooms were full of the richest furniture, chairs inlaid with ivory,
gold, and silver, chests inlaid with painted porcelain in little
squares, each square containing a separate bright coloured picture.
There were glorious carpets, and in som