nd reaching the huge arch of black marble
which formed the outer gate of the palace. Within they were fiercely
ordered to halt by a gold-crested and magnificent sentinel who laid his
shining spear across their breasts until his superior officer should
give them permission to pass. The abbot had been warned, however, that
all obstacles would give way if he mentioned the name of Basil the
eunuch, who acted as chamberlain of the palace and also as
Parakimomen--a high office which meant that he slept at the door of the
Imperial bed-chamber. The charm worked wonderfully, for at the mention
of that potent name the Protosphathaire, or Head of the Palace Guards,
who chanced to be upon the spot, immediately detached one of his
soldiers with instructions to convoy the two strangers into the presence
of the chamberlain.

Passing in succession a middle guard and an inner guard, the travellers
came at last into the palace proper, and followed their majestic guide
from chamber to chamber, each more wonderful than the last. Marbles and
gold, velvet and silver, glittering mosaics, wonderful carvings, ivory
screens, curtains of Armenian tissue and of Indian silk, damask from
Arabia, and amber from the Baltic--all these things merged themselves in
the minds of the two simple provincials, until their eyes ached and
their senses reeled before the blaze and the glory of this, the most
magnificent of the dwellings of man. Finally, a pair of curtains,
crusted with, gold, were parted, and their guide handed them over to a
negro eunuch who stood within. A heavy, fat, brown-skinned man, with a
large, flabby, hairless face, was pacing up and down the small
apartment, and he turned upon them as they entered with an abominable
and threatening smile. His loose lips and pendulous cheeks were those of
a gross old woman, but above them there shone a pair of dark malignant
eyes, full of fierce intensity of observation and judgment.

"You have entered the palace by using my name," he said. "It is one of
my boasts that any of the populace can approach me in this way. But it
is not fortunate for those who take advantage of it without due cause."
Again he smiled a smile which made the frightened boy cling tightly to
the loose serge skirts of the abbot.

But the ecclesiastic was a man of courage. Undaunted by the sinister
appearance of the great chamberlain, or by the threat which lay in his
words, he laid his hand upon his young companion's shoulder and f