The purple light had almost faded below, and the grey dusk was creeping up out of the ground, though the high upper story of the marble palace was still bathed in the evening glow, and still a few swallows circled round the eaves. Zoë looked up to the vast cornices and at the fleecy pink clouds that floated in the sky, and as she was forced along, almost as fast as she could walk, she wondered whether she should ever again see the bright noonday sun. It would not take long to kill her if Gorlias did not come in time. There were many men coming and going now, and there were guards in scarlet, drawn up at the entrance to the palace as if they were waiting. Some slaves, hastening away, paused a moment to watch Zoë go by, smooth-faced creatures who lived among the Emperor's women. 'There goes five hundred ducats' worth!' laughed one, in a voice like a girl's. 'What has she done?' asked another, of the dumb Ethiopian. The speaker was a newcomer in the palace, and the others jeered at him for not knowing that the man was one of the mutes. And he pushed and dragged Zoë along without noticing them. She looked straight before her now, at the palace door, and as she went, she was in a kind of dream, and she wondered what the room to which she was being taken would be like, the place where she was presently to be tortured if Gorlias did not come in time; she wondered whether it would be light or dark, and what the colour of the walls would be. The African hurt her very much as he forced her along, though she made no resistance; but she did not think of the pain she felt, nor of the pain she would surely be made to feel presently. It was as if she were detached from her own personality, and could speculate about what was going to happen to her, and about the men who would ask her questions, and about the queer-looking instruments of torture that would be brought, and even the colour of the executioner's hair. She fancied him a red-haired man with ugly, yellow eyes and bad teeth that he showed. She did not know whether it were fear or courage that so took her out of herself. But all the time she was listening for a distant sound that might come, or that might not; and her hearing grew so sharp that she could have heard it a mile away, and the distance between her and the palace door grew shorter very quickly, and the ruthless mute urged her along faster and faster, though she limped so badly. Then her heart leapt and stood still a moment, and the Ethiopian's grasp relaxed a little, and he slackened his pace. Not that he heard what she heard, for he was stone deaf; but the guards who stood about the door had begun to range themselves in even ranks on either side, and a tall officer made signs to the African to stand out of the way. The air rang with the music of distant silver trumpets, there was a subdued hum of many voices and the trampling of many horses' hoofs on the hard earth outside the court.