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."