Dull gold smoldered underfoot in the mosaic of the pavement. Gold and orichalcum glittered and shimmered on pillar and wall. Chairs and tables of stone and bronze and polished woods were heavy with the precious metal. Set in the bases of the seventy and six pillars which upheld the roof were patterns gorgeous in agate, lapis-lazuli, turquoise, quartz, and rock-crystal. Other and similar panels adorned the walls. Farther up, where the work in gold and orichalcum began--placed so high, perhaps, to be out of reach of avaricious fingers--were more precious stones. There topaz, moonstone, amethyst, opal, sapphire, diamond, and priceless ruby and emerald flaunted their hundred fires. "Lordy!" muttered Zenas Wright under his breath to Ensign Brooks as they crossed the hall. "Give me a pick and a ladder and a half hour alone in which to use them, and you may have and welcome the rubies of Sardanes which went down with the _Minnetonka_." Near a fountain, the jets of which fell and flowed over a grotto of opalescent glass lighted from within, sat the master of all this splendor, Bel-Ar, king of Maeronica and lord of the underseas. On no raised dais or lofty throne sat this monarch who was absolute in his own land. A high-backed chair of carved black wood sufficed him, raised from the flooring on a single slab of red porphyry, scarcely twelve inches high. On another chair at his right sat his queen. The two were in the center of a wide crescent of seats and benches, whereon sat the nobles and ladies of Maeronica who made up the court. Without the semicircle stood attendants and slaves. Farther back, ranged in a double line, was one full company, one hundred men, of the palace guard, all in bronze mail, and each carrying his bared sword. Like a dull moth among a concourse of gaudy and fluttering butterflies was this powerful Maeronican king. He was attired simply in cloth of dark blue. A cloak of the same material had fallen back from his shoulders. On his knee rested a flat black cap of the same pattern that his meanest sailors wore. Only a light circlet of twisted gold, fashioned in the semblance of a slender serpent, set on his heavy black hair above his temples, and a short, broad sword which swung at his belt, distinguished the garb of Bel-Ar from that of the ordinary citizen of Adlaz.