From the cabinet in which
he slept, you entered a vast hall, through a lofty and spacious
arch, generally covered with drapery, which was now withdrawn. To the
astonishment of Alroy, this presence-chamber appeared at this moment
to blaze with light. He rose from his couch, he advanced; he perceived,
with feelings of curiosity and fear, that the hall was filled with
beings, terrible indeed to behold, but to his sight more terrible than
strange. In the colossal and mysterious forms that lined the walls
of the mighty chamber, and each of which held in its extended arm a
streaming torch, he recognised the awful Afrites. At the end of the
hall, upon a sumptuous throne, surrounded by priests and courtiers,
there was seated a monarch, on whom Alroy had before gazed, Solomon the
Great! Alroy beheld him in state and semblance the same Solomon, whose
sceptre the Prince of the Captivity had seized in the royal tombs of
Judah.
The strange assembly seemed perfectly unconscious of the presence of the
child of Earth, who, with a desperate courage, leant against a column of
the arch, and watched, with wonder, their mute and motionless society.
Nothing was said, nothing done. No one moved, no one, even by gesture,
seemed sensible of the presence of any other apparition save himself.
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