She rose on her hind legs, and put her paws on my shoulders; I threw my arms round her.
She pricked her ears, broke from me, and was out of sight in a moment.
The man I had sent to the princess entered.
"Please to come this way, my lord," he said.
My heart gave a throb, as if bracing itself to the encounter.

I followed him through many passages, and was at last shown into a room so large and so dark that its walls were invisible.

A single spot on the floor reflected a little light, but around that spot all was black.

I looked up, and saw at a great height an oval aperture in the roof, on the periphery of which appeared the joints between blocks of black marble.
The light on the floor showed close fitting slabs of the same material.
I found afterward that the elliptical wall as well was of black marble, absorbing the little light that reached it.

The roof was the long half of an ellipsoid, and the opening in it was over one of the foci of the ellipse of the floor.