Keeping time to the triumphant march, and preserving dismal silence, the procession wound its way along the room and through a great archway heretofore hidden by the tapestry now lifted lightly by the nymphs.

A long stone passage, carpeted with crimson and gold, and brilliantly illuminated like the grand saloon they had left, was thus revealed, and three similar archways appeared at the extremity, one to the right and left, and one directly before them.

The procession passed through the one to the left, and Sir Norman started in dismay to find himself in the most gloomy apartment he had ever beheld in his life.

It was all covered with black--walls, ceiling, and floor were draped in black, and reminded him forcibly of La Masque's chamber of horrors, only this was more repellant.

It was lighted, or rather the gloom was troubled, by a few spectral tapers of black wax in ebony candlesticks, that seemed absolutely to turn black, and make the horrible place more horrible.
There was no furniture--neither couch, chair, nor table nothing but a sort of stage at the upper end of the room, with something that looked like a seat upon it, and both were shrouded with the same dismal drapery.