When the Babylonian hung gardens in the air, extravagance could push the idea no further.
The lad whom we are following walked slowly across the house-top to a tower built over the northwest corner of the palace.

Had he been a stranger, he might have bestowed a glance upon the structure as he drew nigh it, and seen all the dimness permitted--a darkened mass, low, latticed, pillared, and domed.

He entered, passing under a half-raised curtain.

The interior was all darkness, except that on four sides there were arched openings like doorways, through which the sky, lighted with stars, was visible.

In one of the openings, reclining against a cushion from a divan, he saw the figure of a woman, indistinct even in white floating drapery.