The big lamp, which gave a brilliant light, was of
hammered brass; the base of its square pedestal was partly hidden
in the rumples of a heavy damask spread which covered the table on
which it rested. The table itself was old, spindle-legged, glowing
with the mellow luster endowed by many passing generations--a
relic of the days when the originator of its fashion became the
favorite of a capricious and beautiful queen. Soft rugs were upon
the floor; from the walls, papered and hung with odd bits of
tapestry, strange faces looked down upon Philip from out of heavy
gilded frames; faces grim, pale, shadowed; men with plaited
ruffles and curls; women with powdered hair, who gazed down upon
him haughtily, as if they wondered at his intrusion.
One picture was turned with its face to the wall.
Philip sank into a huge arm-chair, cushioned with velvet, and
dropped his cap upon the floor. And this was Fort o' God! He
scarcely breathed. He was back two centuries, and he stared, as if
each moment he expected some manifestation of life in what he saw.
He had dreamed his dream over the dead at Churchill; here it was
reality--almost; it lacked but a breath, a movement, a flutter of
life in the dead faces that looked down upon him.
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