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A moss-grown and slippery stairway leads to the green twilight of a subterranean grotto, containing the richly-carved stone bedstead of the Sultan, who sought this cool retreat from the ardour of a tropical sun. A silvery curtain of murmuring water fell before his sculptured couch, and supplied this haunt of dreams with an ideal, if rheumatic environment of poetic beauty and lulling charm.
Ninian's and Rothesay, and on the sloping strand of the bay he found Earl Kenric busy with his retainers carrying stores down to a great galley that was moored against a stone pier in the little creek near to the castle gates. This ship, which was built in the shipyard of Rothesay, was entirely of oak and of great dimensions, ornamented with richly-carved dragons overlaid with beaten gold.
A piece of matting stretched from door to door, a bit of worn carpet under the dining-table, and a sideboard in a deep recess, did not detain the eye for a moment from the lofty groined ceiling, with its richly-carved pendants, all of creamy white, relieved here and there by touches of gold.
A slight push, and she was in a large, beautiful hall, where three lofty vaulted aisles were supported by slender marble columns with richly-carved capitals. At the end of the centre aisle a staircase in the form of a horseshoe led to a gallery. The walls up-stairs and down, sparsely filled with books, told her she was in the library.
Above the door of one, neatly carved in wood, were the lines from Horace: "Ille terrarum mihi praeter omnes. Angulus ridet." Only a few chosen guests found admittance into this long, narrow apartment. It was completely wainscoted with wood, and from the centre of the richly-carved ceiling a strange picture gleamed in brilliant hues. This represented the landlord.
Within the choir were preserved the eighteen richly-carved stalls once occupying a similar position in the desecrated conventual church: and though exquisite in themselves, they seemed here sadly out of place, not being proportionate to the structure. Their elaborately-carved seats projected far into the body of the church, and their crocketed pinnacles shot up almost to the ceiling.
Then came the door of Santa Catalina, black and gold, with richly-carved polychrome foliage, mixed with lions and castles, and on the jambs two statues of prophets. Gabriel went on a few steps further as he saw that the wicket of the doorway was being opened from inside.
Two other figures completed the group that was formed near the wigwam door. One of them was a young man of tall end muscular form, whose dress and richly-carved weapons would have proclaimed him to be an Indian warrior and chieftain, had not his curling brown hair, and deep blue eyes, spoken of a Saxon lineage.
The elaborate carving resembled lacework, and the beauty of the airy dome and slender, glittering minarets of this mimic tomb of Noor-Mahal could find no parallel, save in the superb and matchless original. The richly-carved door that closed the arch of the tomb swung back on golden hinges, and opened only by a curiously-shaped golden key, which never left Mr.
Farewell, friend." For some little time, although I had known that the daylight was growing and what was around me, I had scarce seen the things I had before noted so keenly; but now in a flash I saw all the east crimson with sunrise through the white window on my right hand; the richly-carved stalls and gilded screen work, the pictures on the walls, the loveliness of the faultless colour of the mosaic window lights, the altar and the red light over it looking strange in the daylight, and the biers with the hidden dead men upon them that lay before the high altar.
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