But when I drew near to them, lo! all were black
stones. My understanding was confounded at the sight, but I walked
on and entered the great hall of the harem, whose walls I found hung
with tapestries of gold-striped silk, and spread with silken carpets
embroidered with golden flowers. Here I saw the Queen lying at full
length arrayed in robes purfled with fresh young pearls. On her head
was a diadem set with many sorts of gems each fit for a ring, and
around her neck hung collars and necklaces. All her raiment and her
ornaments were in natural state, but she had been turned into a
black stone by Allah's wrath.
Presently I espied an open door, for which I made straight, and
found leading to it a flight of seven steps. So I walked up and came
upon a place pargeted with marble and spread and hung with gold-worked
carpets and tapestry, a-middlemost of which stood a throne of
juniper wood inlaid with pearls and precious stones and set with
bosses of emeralds. In the further wall was an alcove whose
curtains, bestrung with pearls, were let down and I saw a light
issuing therefrom, so I drew near and perceived that the light came
from a precious stone as big as an ostrich egg, set at the upper end
of the alcove upon a little chryselephantine couch of ivory and
gold.
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