These events are succeeded by a few moments of silent waiting. Then suddenly the long lines of soldiers vibrate under a thrill of religious awe; the band, with its great basses and its drums, strikes up a deafening, mournful air. The fifty little black slaves run, run as if their lives were at stake, deploying [Footnote: Deploying: unfolding, opening out.] from their base like the sticks of a fan, resembling bees swarming, or a flock of birds. And yonder, in the shadowy light of the ogive, [Footnote: Ogive: the arch which crosses a Gothic vault diagonally.] upon which all eyes are turned, there appears a tall, brown-faced mannikin, all veiled in white muslin, mounted on a splendid white horse led in hand by four slaves; over his head is held an umbrella of antique form, such an one as must have protected the Queen of Sheba, [Footnote: Queen of Sheba: the queen who came to test the wisdom of Solomon.] and two gigantic negroes, one in pink, the other in blue, wave fly-flaps around the person of the sovereign. While the strange mannikin, or mummy, almost shapeless, but majestic notwithstanding in his robes of snowy white, is advancing towards us, the music, as if exasperated to madness, wails louder and louder and in a shriller key; it strikes up a slow and distressful religious air, the time of which is accentuated by a frightful beating of the bass-drums. The mannikin's horse rears wildly, restrained with difficulty by the four black slaves, and this music, so mournful and so strange to us, affects our nerves with an indescribable agonizing sensation. Here, at last, drawn up close beside us, stands this last authentic descendant of Mahomet, crossed with Nubian blood. His attire, of the finest mousseline-de-laine, is of immaculate whiteness. His charger, too, is entirely white, his great stirrups are of gold, and his saddle and equipments are of a very pale green silk, lightly embroidered in a still paler shade of green. The slaves who hold his horse, the one who carries the great red umbrella, and the two--the pink and blue ones--who shake napkins in the monarch's face to drive away imaginary flies, are all herculean negroes whose countenances are wrinkled into fierce smiles; they are all old men, and their gray or white beards contrast with the blackness of their features. This ceremonial of a bygone age harmonizes with the wailing music, and could not suit better the huge walls around us, which rear their crumbling summits high in the air.