The sixteen giant figures of Osiris in the likeness of King Akhnaton, in royal tiaras and tightly drawn winding sheets, had all been broken to bits. The ceiling had fallen in and pale moonlight fell upon the pale blocks of alabaster—the giant limbs of the dead giants.
Picking his way between them and climbing over them, Merira approached the inner wall of the Holy of Holies, where there was a figure of a Sphinx, with a lion's body and human arms, raising to Aton the Sun a figure of the goddess Maat, the Truth, as a sacrificial offering. The Sphinx had the face of King Akhnaton; if a man had been tortured for a thousand years in hell and then came to the earth again, he would have such a face.
The Sphinx had not been destroyed, either because those engaged on the task had failed to recognize the Criminal's face or because they had not the courage to destroy so terrible a monster.
Merira stood on a stone to see it better in the pale moonlight. He was looking at it eagerly and suddenly stretched forward to it and kissed it on the lips.
At the same moment he felt that someone was standing behind his back: he turned round and saw Issachar.
"Ah, it's you again!" he said, stepping off the stone. "Why do you follow me about? What are you doing here?"
"And what are you doing?" Issachar asked.
"I am waiting for him," Merira answered, with a jeer. "If he is alive let him come. Does he visit you?"
"No. But he will come to us together: we both wanted to kill him and we shall both see him alive."
"Are you speaking of the king?"