They moved the king to the Maru-Aton palace where Princess Makitatona had died four months before.
It was a three-storeyed building, high like a tower; the bottom was of brick, the top, light and airy, of cedar and cypress wood, trellis-worked, gilded and painted like a jewel casket. On hot days drops of resin trickled down the match-boarded walls and the palace was fragrant like a censer.
The flat roof had a carved railing all round it—a row of Sun-serpents, with gold sun-discs on their heads, their throats dilated with poison. A fire was perpetually burning upon an altar on the roof and, on an alabaster column in front of it, the sun disc of the god Aton made of cham, a mixture of gold and silver, glittered in the sky like another sun.
As soon as the king felt better he went up on the roof to pray.
On the tenth day of his illness there was such an improvement in his health that Dio began to hope again.
He went up to the roof in the evening, himself chopped some sandalwood and put it on the altar, and when a white pillar of smoke rose in the still air he knelt down, and stretching his arms to the hand-shaped rays of Aton's sun began to pray. Standing beside him, Dio heard the words of an ancient Babylonian psalm:
"Out of the depths have I cried unto Thee, O Lord! Hear my voice, let Thine ears be attentive to the voice of my supplication and enter not into judgment with Thy servant, for in Thy sight shall no man living be justified. The enemy has persecuted my soul, has smitten my life down to the ground, has made me to dwell in darkness as those that have been long dead. My spirit is overwhelmed within me, my heart within me is desolate. I stretch forth my hands unto Thee; my soul thirsteth after Thee as a thirsty land. Hear me speedily, O Lord, for I am Thy son!"
The sun had set behind the Lybian hills and in the afterglow the sky seemed covered with feathers of fire; the green of the palm groves had turned blue and the mirror-like surface of the water, almost invisible, like another sky, reflected exquisite opalescent shades of white, blue, green, yellow and rose.
The day had not yet died in the west but the night was already being born in the east: there, in a violet velvety sky, a full moon was glowing, yellow as though filled with honey.
When he had finished his prayer, the king rose, looked round and said: