Perhaps you will live to see that day, Vernoon.
Slave," she added, addressing Jeekie, "set the mask upon your lord's head, for we come where women are." Alan objected, but she stamped her foot and said it must be so, having once worn Little Bonsa, as her people told her he had done, his naked face might not be seen.

So Alan submitted to the hideous head-dress and they entered the Asika's house by some back entrance.
It was a place with many rooms in it, but they were all remarkable for extreme simplicity.

With a single exception no gilding or gold was to be seen, although the food vessels were made of this material here as everywhere.

The chambers, including those in which the Asika lived and slept, were panelled, or rather boarded with cedar wood that was almost black with age, and their scanty furniture was mostly made of ebony.
They were very insufficiently lighted, like his own room, by means of barred openings set high in the wall.

Indeed gloom and mystery were the keynotes of this place, amongst the shadows of which handsome, half-naked servants or priestesses flitted to and fro at their tasks, or peered at them out of dark corners.