The whole effect was terribly weird and disconcerting.
Presently I started, as, seemingly out of the darkness beside me, a man's hand stretched out and took mine.

Turning, I found close to me a tall man with shining black eyes and long black hair and beard.

He was clad in some kind of gorgeous robe of cloth of gold, rich with variety of adornment.

His head was covered with a high, over-hanging hat draped closely with a black scarf, the ends of which formed a long, hanging veil on either side.

These veils, falling over the magnificent robes of cloth of gold, had an extraordinarily solemn effect.
I yielded myself to the guiding hand, and shortly found myself, so far as I could see, at one side of the sanctuary.
In the floor close to my feet was a yawning chasm, into which, from so high over my head that in the uncertain light I could not distinguish its origin, hung a chain.