Ormiston stepped forward at once; but Sir Norman discreetly paused in the doorway to contemplate the scene of action.

As he slowly did so, a look of deep displeasure settled on his features, on finding it not half so awful as he had supposed.
In some ways it was very like the room they had left, being low, large, and square, and having floors, walls and ceiling paneled with glossy black oak.

But it had no windows--a large bronze lamp, suspended from the centre of the ceiling, shed a flickering, ghostly light.

There were no paintings--some grim carvings of skulls, skeletons, and serpents, pleasantly wreathed the room--neither were there seats nor tables--nothing but a huge ebony caldron at the upper end of the apartment, over which a grinning skeleton on wires, with a scythe in one hand of bone, and an hour-glass in the other, kept watch and ward.
Opposite this cheerful-looking guardian, was a tall figure in black, standing an motionless as if it, too, was carved in ebony.

It was a female figure, very tall and slight, but as beautifully symmetrical as a Venus Celestis.