had done with their ivory wands. We stepped between them, and found
ourselves in an exactly similar gallery to that which led to our own
apartments, only this passage was, comparatively speaking, brilliantly
lighted. A few paces down it we were met by four mutes--two men and two
women--who bowed low and then arranged themselves, the women in front
and the men behind of us, and in this order we continued our procession
past several doorways hung with curtains resembling those leading to
our own quarters, and which I afterwards found opened out into chambers
occupied by the mutes who attended on _She_. A few paces more and we
came to another doorway facing us, and not to our left like the others,
which seemed to mark the termination of the passage. Here two more
white-, or rather yellow-robed guards were standing, and they too
bowed, saluted, and let us pass through heavy curtains into a great
antechamber, quite forty feet long by as many wide, in which some eight
or ten women, most of them young and handsome, with yellowish hair, sat
on cushions working with ivory needles at what had the appearance of
being embroidery frames. These women were also deaf and dumb. At the
farther end of this great lamp-lit apartment was another doorway closed
in with heavy Oriental-looking curtains, quite unlike those that hung
before the doors of our own rooms, and here stood two particularly
handsome girl mutes, their heads bowed upon their bosoms and their hands
crossed in an attitude of humble submission. As we advanced they each
stretched out an arm and drew back the curtains. Thereupon Billali did
a curious thing. Down he went, that venerable-looking old gentleman--for
Billali is a gentleman at the bottom--down on to his hands and knees,
and in this undignified position, with his long white beard trailing on
the ground, he began to creep into the apartment beyond. I followed him,
standing on my feet in the usual fashion. Looking over his shoulder he
perceived it.