Now drew they near the city of Candace the queen, and she heard of the coming of Candoyl her son and his wife, and how she had been taken prisoner by the king of Bebrik, and released by a knight of Macedon, who was with them, and she was glad in her heart, and greatly rejoiced. Into a chamber she went and changed all her weeds, and put on a robe of red gold and a rich mantle over it, a crown and a kerchief clustered with gems, and came down from her palace gate surrounded by her knights, and found them before it. So she clasped her son in her arms and kissed him, and said, “Welcome be thou, my loved son, and thou, my dearest daughter, and I am glad of your guest, as the gods give me joy:” and Alexander looked on her, and his heart rejoiced, for he thought her likest of all women to Olympias his mother; fair and fresh was she as a falcon, or as some spirit from another world. So they came into her castle-hall, full of precious stones and adorned with gems, its pillars of porphyry, and its floor of bright crystal, clear as a river, and there they sat at meat--Alexander and Candace and Candoyl, served together at the high table.
On the morrow at first light Candace the queen came with her ladies and took the Greek knight Antiochus through the palace and showed him how richly it was built, and all the wonders in it, great and small. And when he had seen all these things she asked him of the palace of Alexander, and he told her how it was not so rich as hers, but was a home for fighting men to rest in, and to prepare for new wars, while the palaces of the Kings of the East were fitter to make men long for ease than to give them heart for the toil and danger of battle. Then said the Queen, “Other wonders still shall I show thee, O Antiochus, wonders that no king hath the like of,” and she bade her servants go forth, and giving her hand to the Greek led him into a room, covered with cypress and with cedar from floor to roof, where they sat down on two thrones in the room. Soon a mighty sound was heard, and as the Greek looked out he saw the trees and the fields and the town moving round him, and he knew that he was in a chamber that turned round by some hidden power. It is to be said that this room was turned round by the strength of twenty tame elephants that the queen kept for this end, and everyday she came and sat in the chamber and looked from the window while it was turned for a space. So as the false Antiochus looked he wondered and said, “Verily, O Queen, were such a wonder as this in our land of Macedon, proud would our lord the king be of it above all his treasures”; and Candace looked on him and said, “Alexander, this is but little to the wonders that the men of this land can show the Greeks.”