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The whip cracked, the horses dashed forward, the feathers on their manes swayed, snowflakes of foam dropped off their bridles, and the chariot flew like a whirlwind. The air whistled in the ears; the lion's tail fixed to the king's belt at the back and the crimson ribbons of his robe fluttered in the wind. The king was driving; Dio stood behind him.
They passed the palm groves and the fields of ripe, yellow corn, taller than the height of man; the Nile glittered for the last time in the distance and the menacing silence of the endless desert, now dark brown, now sparkling like glass, enveloped them.
As she looked through her lashes at the shining snake-like sandy roads, flattened by heavy traffic, Dio recalled the thin layer of ice over the thawing snow sparkling in the sun on Mount Dicte. The dazzling air was shimmering with the heat. A vulture hung motionless in the dark blue sky. At times the shadow of a passing cloud ran over the ground and, still quicker, an antelope galloped past; suddenly it would stop and, stretching out its neck, sniff the air and then run on, light as the wind.
The sun was setting when the wayfarers saw on a high rock of the Arabian hills a boundary-stone of the province of Aton.
The images of King Akhnaton and Queen Nefertiti, cut out in the rock at a height where only the wind, the sun and the eagles could reach them, were half-covered, as though buried alive, by the waves of drifting sands. The only way to reach the bas-reliefs was to descend by a rope down a perpendicular rock; and evidently this was what some enemy of Aton's faith had done, for the images were broken and defiled.
The king stepped out of the chariot. The long black shadow cast by his figure upon the white sand seemed to stretch to the ends of the earth.
There was a clatter of hoofs. The high-priest, Merira, and the chief of the guards, Mahu, drove up.
"If I could only find the scoundrels, I would kill them on the spot!" Mahu cried indignantly, when he saw the desecrated images.
"Come, come, my friend," said the king, with a smile. "The sands will bury them anyway—there will be nothing left."
Mahu went to make arrangements for the night: the king wished to sleep in the desert.
Close by there was a mountain gorge, dark and narrow like a coffin, where tombs had been cut in the rock for the princesses. Hard by an old fig-tree made an unfading patch of green against the dead sand, and a sweetbrier flowered, fragrant with the scent of honey and roses: the secret water of an underground spring kept them fresh.
The king, accompanied by Dio and Merira, went down into the gorge to see the tombs.
When they had finished they walked up the slope of the hill by a narrow jackals' path, talking.
"Is the decree concerning the gods ready, Merira?" the king asked.
Dio understood that he meant the decree prohibiting the worship of all the old gods.
"It is ready," Merira answered, "but do think before you proclaim it, sire."
"Think of what?"
"Of not losing your kingdom."
The king looked at him intently, without speaking, and then asked again:
"And what ought I to do, my friend, not to lose my kingdom?"
"I have told you many times, Uaenra: be merciful to yourself and others."
"To myself and others? Can one do both?"
"Yes."
"And what do you think, Dio?"
"I think one cannot."
Merira looked at her from under his brows, with mute derision.
"Do you remember, Merira, who it was said: 'I know the day when I shall not be'?" the king asked.
"I remember: the god Osiris."
"No, the man Osiris. It is the will of the Father that the Son should suffer and die for all. Blessed be my heavenly Father! I, too, know the day when I shall not be. It is drawing near—it has come already. Now my kingdom is coming to an end, now fulfil the last will of your king, Merira, son of Nehtaneb, and proclaim to men my decree concerning the false gods and the one true God, whose is the glory for ever and ever!"
"Your will shall be done, sire, but remember: once the fire is kindled, there is no putting it out."
"Why, did you think we should just play with the fire and then let it out?" the king said, with a smile. He put both his hands on Merira's shoulders and again looked deep into his eyes.
"I know what makes you wretched, Merira," he said quietly, almost in a whisper. "You have not yet decided whether you are my friend or my enemy. Maybe you will decide very soon. Remember one thing: I love you. Don't be afraid then, my friend, my beloved enemy; be my friend or my enemy to the bitter end. God help you!"
He put his arms round him and kissed him.
The chariot was brought. The king stepped into it and Dio followed him. The whip cracked, the horses dashed off and the chariot flew like the whirlwind.
Merira watched it go, and when it disappeared in the last rays of the setting sun he stretched out his arms towards it and cried:
"You have prophesied your own doom, Akhnaton Uaenra: now your sun is setting, now your kingdom is coming to an end!"
It was already dark when, having driven far into the hilly desert, the king stopped and alighted from the chariot. Dio tied the horses to a spear stuck in the sand. The king sat down on a stone and Dio sat at his feet.
He pointed out to her the distant flame of a bonfire in the desert.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Mahu, strange man that he is...." the king answered. "He follows me about like a watchdog; I suppose he is afraid of my running away...."
Both were silent: Dio was waiting for him to speak: she knew he had come with her to the desert in order to talk undisturbed.
"I want to ask you something, Dio, and I cannot, I can't find the words," he began quietly, without looking at her.
He broke off and then began lower still:
"Do you know what Iserker said to me when I asked him why he wanted to kill me? 'Because, being a man, you make yourself God'. This was well said, wasn't it?"
"No, it wasn't: you don't make yourself God."
"I know I don't: it would be better for a man who made himself God not to have been born. But that's one thing and then there is something else; and one thing is so like the other that sometimes there is no distinguishing them.... And then it turns round all of a sudden: it was like this and then, all at once, it's the other way about...."
He rambled on incoherently, constantly losing the thread of his thought, wandering off the point and trying to find words; at last he was in a complete tangle and, with a wave of his hand, said hopelessly:
"No, I cannot! I will tell you another time...."
Dio smiled, and, taking his hand began kissing and stroking it gently, comforting him like a child.
"Better tell me now, Enra!"
'Enra' was the diminutive of 'Uaenra' and only those most intimate with him called him so.
"You speak very well, I understand it all. You don't make yourself a god, that's one thing, and what was the other?" she tried to help him as though he were a schoolboy who had forgotten his lesson.
"What was the other thing?" he began again and suddenly hurried on joyfully. "Do you remember the prayer 'Thou, Father art in my heart and no one knows Thee but me, Thy son?' I have said this and I don't go back on it. I never shall. This is as fixed in me as the stars in heaven. But this is so when I am not afraid, and when I am afraid, I pray to the Father: 'send someone else, someone else instead, I cannot!' And now, too, I am afraid. I keep thinking of the burden I have taken upon myself. Can a man bear it? What do you think, can he?"
"I don't know, Enra...."
"Don't you know either?"
The way he looked at her wrung her heart.
She clasped his knees and cried: "Yes, I do know: you can—you alone!"
He said nothing and buried his face in his hands. There was a long silence.
The stars came out. The Milky Way like a cloud rent in two stretched from one end of the desert to the other; the Pleiades glowed and the seven stars of Tuart, the Hippopotamus, glittered with a cold brilliance.
The king uncovered his face and looked at Dio. His face was as still as the sleeping desert and the starry heavens above. But Dio shuddered: she recalled the Sphinx with the face of Akhnaton; if a man had been tortured for a thousand years in hell and then came to earth again, he would have such a face.
"Dio, my sister, my beloved, why did you come to me, why did you love me?" he said, wringing his hands. "It was easier for me without you: I did not know myself then, did not see myself. For the first time I saw myself in you and was terrified: who am I? who am I? Go away, I beg you! Why should you be tortured with me?"
"No, my brother, I shall never go away from you, I want to suffer with you!"
"You have escaped one fire and now you seek another?"
"Yes, I want to perish in your fire!"