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 massive brow and masterful face.

The deep lines of thought, graven deeper by age, followed the noble shaping of his brows in even course, and his dark eyes still shot fire, as piercing the bleared thickness of time to gaze boldly on the eternity beyond.