absurd though it seemed to laurence to be ushered with such ceremony into a palace where he had slept three nights already , they were set in a row with the kaziliks before and after , and marched in stately array through the flung-wide bronze gates and into the courtyard standing just before the gorgeously ornamented portico of the gate of felicity : in perfect orderly rows along the pathway stood the ranks of the vezirs , their white turbans brilliant in the sunshine , and farther back along the walls the nervous snorting horses of the cavalry in attendance pranced as they walked by .