"He will tell you himself, go to him."
"I am keeping watch; I must wait till I am relieved."
"Never mind. I will take your place."
Dio ran up the stairs to the flat roof of Aton's temple.
The day was just dawning. The sky seemed empty and glassy like the open eye of a corpse. The waters of the river looked leaden. The earth was under the spell of sleep. The town below appeared dead. It was the hour when men's sleep is like death as is said in the hymn to Aton:
Men sleep in darkness like the dead,
Their heads are wrapped up, their nostrils stopped,
Stolen are all their things that are under their heads,
While they know it not.
Every lion comes forth from his den,
All serpents creep out of their holes,
The creator has gone to rest and the world is silent.
The white walls of the temple were dull-green as though under water. All was dead; only on the great altar of the Sun a perpetual fire was burning and the sun disc of Aton above it—the highest point of the whole huge edifice—glowed with a dull-red glow as though a ray of an invisible sun were reflected in it.
Dio saw the king in the distance, but she did not recognise him at once. He was sitting on the altar steps in a curiously cramped attitude, with his chin resting against his knees and his face buried in his hands. "Sitting on their heels in the dust," she recalled the refrain of the Babylonian song about the dead in the underworld, mournful as the howling of the night wind. He probably did not hear her step, for he did not stir. She did not dare to call him, thinking he was asleep.
Suddenly he raised his head and looked at her in a way that made her heart stand still.
"Ah, Dio! Have you seen Saakera?"