The Rebel Chief by Gustave Aimard

The dining room of the Hacienda del Arenal was a vast, long room lighted by Gothic windows lined with coloured glass. The walls, covered with oak paneling, rendered black by time, gave it the appearance of a Carthusian refectory in the fifteenth century. An immense horseshoe table, surrounded by benches, except at the upper end, occupied the entire centre of the room.

When Count de la Saulay entered the dining room, the other guests, numbering from twenty to twenty-five, were already assembled.