In answer to a hasty motion on the part of his silent master, Dedu commenced to bind him in the long, flaring-skirted gala robes of the day, things of wonder for the seemingly innumerable ramifications of their softly rippling white pleats. A gem-encrusted belt of ruddy Nubian gold was clasped about his slender waist, a girdle broad in the back and tapering towards the front, where a fiercely charging oryx, carved from a solid block of Babylonian lazuli, served to conceal the mechanism of the clasp. The restless monarch’s feet were bound in soft gazelle-hide sandals, sandals dyed a rich rose-pink, gilded and turned up at the toe. Over a padded linen skull-cap was set the royal warbonnet, a magnificent dome-shaped headdress of a brilliant sky blue. From the center of this regal head-covering, and immediately above the monarch’s low and unnaturally retreating forehead, the red jasper eyes of two golden asps glittered like spots of hidden fire, as they quivered upon flexible wires with every movement of the impatient monarch. In public, the vain and indolent monarchs who had followed Thothmes, Conqueror of Asia, had ever affected the Warbonnet above all other headdresses. At sight of its bright blue inlays the discreet and sycophantic courtiers invariably burst into vociferous applause; the soldiers, with howls of delight, broke into stirring war-dances. With the people at large it was hailed with delight. To them it symbolized Imperial Egypt, an Egypt to which tribute arrived from Nubia to the “great bend” of the distant Euphrates. Thus, policy had dictated the Linen Keeper’s choice, for the fiction of Pharaoh as world-conqueror _must_ be maintained. Deftly the fawning Dedu encircled Pharaoh’s emaciated arms and wrists with jeweled bands, his hollow chest with the _wesekh_, a broad, flat band of jewels composed of alternate strands of varicolored stones. The tender green of Nubian emerald, the soft rose of native carnelian, the violet or rich purple of Asiatic amethyst and the several red tones of translucent sard and banded agate, were intensified as much by Pharaoh’s swarthy countenance as by the pure white linen tunic over which they were spread. Finally, the scepter of gold, banded with deep red sardonyx, was placed in Pharaoh’s nervously twitching hand, and Akhten-aton, “Terror of Asia,” shuffled to the door, where his ivory carrying-chair, his sixteen priestly bearers, his sun-shade and fan-bearers, and his pet lion, awaited him. With the inevitable prayer for “health and long life” upon their lips, one and all saluted the god-king by raising their right hands and crooking their lean backs in the obsequious Syrian mode, but recently introduced.