ose nobler captives whose pale faces and eagle eyes
stood forth everywhere in strong contrast with the coarser features and
duskier skins of their fellows in servitude,--the race not born to
dominate, but born to endure even to the end. These all mingled together
in the strange and broken reflections of the evening light, and here and
there the purple dye of the sun tinged the white tunic of some poor
slave to as fair a colour as a king's son might wear.

On this side and on that of the tables that were spread for the feast,
stood great candlesticks, as tall as the height of two men, tapering
from the thickness and heavy carving below to the fineness and delicate
tracery above, and bearing upon them cups of bronze, each having its
wick steeped in fine oil mixed with wax. Moreover, in the midst of the
hall, where the seat of the king was put upon a raised floor, the
pillars stood apart for a space, so that there was a chamber, as it
were, from the wall on the right to the wall on the left, roofed with
great carved rafters; and the colour of the walls was red,--a deep and
glorious red that seemed to make of the smooth plaster a sheet of
precious marble. Beyond, beneath the pillars, the panels of the aisles
were pictured and made many-coloured with the story of Nebuchadnezzar
the king, his conquests and his feasts, his captives and his courtiers,
in endless train upon the splendid wall. But where the king should sit
in the midst of the hall there were neither pillars nor paintings; only
the broad blaze of the royal colour, rich and even. Beside the table
also stood a great lamp, taller and more cunningly wrought than the
rest,--the foot of rare marble and chiselled bronze and the lamp above
of pure gold from southern Ophir. But it was not yet kindled, for the
sun was not set and the hour for the feast was not fully come.

At the upper end of the hall, before the gigantic statue of wrought
gold, there was an open space, unencumbered by tables, where the smooth,
polished marble floor came to view in all its rich design and colour.
Two persons, entering the hall with slow steps, came to this place and
stood together, looking up at the face of the golden king.

Between the two there was the gulf of a lifetime. The one was already
beyond the common limit of age, while he who stood beside him was but a
fair boy of fourteen summers.

The old man was erect still, and his snowy hair and beard grew like a
lion's mane about his ma