It was a large room. No inch of the flooring was to be seen, for it was covered with thick carpets and the unlined skins of beasts. The fireplace and the entire walls were hidden by shining silks and soft muslins, draped so loosely that they shimmered in the draught of the open door. At the four corners of the room stood clusters of broad-leaved tropical plants, round the bases of which were piled small metal shields, glittering yataghans, long yellowish elephant-tusks, and quaintly-shaped vessels of many-hued pottery; above the dark foliage spears and lances were piled against the wall, pressing back the graceful draperies into their places, and shooting up, straight and glistening, like clumps of tall reeds. The ceiling was painted like a night sky--deep dark blue, with fleecy grayish clouds; from it hung, at irregular intervals, innumerable tiny opalescent lamps, in each of which glowed a little spark of light. Besides this, a large lamp of brass and tinted glass hung suspended from two crossed silken cords nearly in the middle of the room, and immediately under it a small fountain played in a bronze basin. Round three sides of the room was a low divan, covered with loosely thrown rugs and cushions, some of sombre-hued tapestry, some resplendent with gorgeous embroidery. The whole of this most unexpected scene formed only a hazy and harmonious background in George Lauriston’s eyes; for in front of him on the divan, between the two trellised windows, lay a creature so bewitchingly unlike anything of flesh and blood he had ever seen or dreamed of, that the young Englishman felt his brain swim, and held his breath with a great fear lest the dazzling vision before him should melt away, with the scents and the soft lights and the rustle of the night air in the hanging draperies, into the drizzling rain and the damp and the darkness of the street outside.