The building was in the center of the citadel,[33] and was of the stateliest architecture. The massive doors were now thrown open. At the first step, I shrank from the blaze of steel and gold that shot back against the torches. The walls of this gigantic hall were covered with arms and armor of every nation—cuirasses, Persian, Roman, and Greek; the plate mail of the Gaul; the Indian chain-armor; innumerable headpieces, from the steel cap of the Scythian to the plumed and triple-crested helmet of the Greek, that richest combination of strength and beauty ever borne by soldiership; shields of every shape and sculpture; the Greek orb, the Persian rhomb, the Cimmerian crescent; all arms—the ponderous spear of the phalanx; the Thracian pike; the German war-hatchet; the Italian javelin; the bow, from the Nubian, twice the height of man, to the small half-circle of the Assyrian cavalry; swords, the broad-bladed and fearful falchion of the Roman, every thrust of which let out a life; the huge two-handed sword of the Baltic tribes; the Syrian simitar; the Persian acinaces; the deep-hilted knife of the Indian islander; the Arab poniard; the serrated blade of the African—all were there in their richest models, the collection of Herod’s life. War had raised him to a rank which allowed the indulgence of his most lavish tastes of good and ill; the sword was his true scepter, and never king bore the sign of his sovereignty more royally emblazoned. [Sidenote: The Secret Hall] After long admiration of this display of the wealth dearest to the soldier, I was retiring, when a slave approached, and prostrating himself, told me that a hall remained, still more singular, “the hall in which the great Herod received his death-warning.” I gazed round the armory; there was no door but the one by which we had entered—— “Not here,” said the Ethiopian, “yet it is beside us. The foot of a Roman has never entered it. The secret remains with me alone. Does my lord command that it shall be revealed?” The order was given. The slave took down one of the coats of mail, pushed back a valve, and we entered a winding stair which led us downward for some minutes. The narrow passage and heavy air reminded me of the subterranean. Our torches burned dimly, and the visages of my attendants showed how little their gallantry was to be relied on, if we were to be brought into contact with magic and ghosts. “Here,” said the Ethiopian, “it was the custom of the great king in his declining years, when his heart was broken by the loss of the most beloved of wives, and maddened by the conspiracies of the princes, his sons, to come and consult others than the God of Jerusalem. Here the Chaldee men of wisdom came to summon the spirits of the departed and show the fates of kingdoms. We are now in the bowels of the mountain.”