d back into
the passage--"it's not loaded!"

I threw up my arms to save myself, lurched, and fell forward into
what seemed a bottomless pit.

CHAPTER XX

THE GOLDEN PAVILION

When I opened my eyes it was to a conviction that I dreamed. I
lay upon a cushioned divan in a small apartment which I find myself
at a loss adequately to describe.

It was a yellow room, then, its four walls being hung with yellow
silk, its floor being entirely covered by a yellow Persian carpet.
One lamp, burning in a frame of some lemon coloured wood and having
its openings filled with green glass, flooded the place with a
ghastly illumination. The lamp hung by gold chains from the ceiling,
which was yellow. Several low tables of the same lemon-hued wood
as the lamp-frame stood around; they were inlaid in fanciful designs
with gleaming green stones. Turn my eyes where I would, clutch my
aching head as I might, this dream chamber would not disperse, but
remained palpable before me--yellow and green and gold.

There was a niche behind the divan upon which I lay framed about
with yellow wood. In it stood a golden bowl and a tall pot of
yellow porcelain; I lay amid yellow cushions having golden tassels.
Some of them were figured with vivid green devices.

To contemplate my surroundings assuredly must be to court madness.
No door was visible, no window; nothing but silk and luxury, yellow
and green and gold.

To crown all, the air was heavy with a perfume wholly unmistakable
by one acquainted with Egypt's ruling vice. It was the reek of
smouldering hashish--a stench that seemed to take me by the throat,
a vapour damnable and unclean. I saw that a little censer, golden
in colour and inset with emeralds, stood upon the furthermost corner
of the yellow carpet. From it rose a faint streak of vapour; and I
followed the course of the sickly scented smoke upward through the
still air until in oily spirals it lost itself near to the yellow
ceiling. As a sick man will study the veriest trifle I studied
that wisp of smoke, pencilled grayly against the silken draperies,
the carven tables, against the almost terrifying persistency of the
yellow and green and gold.

I strove to rise, but was overcome by vertigo and sank back again
upon the yellow cushions. I closed my eyes, which throbbed and
burned, and rested my head upon my hands. I ceased to conjecture
if I dreamed or was awake. I knew that I felt weak and ill, that
my head t