Overseers were told of to prod the oxen; others to lash the scarred backs of the unhappy Asiatic slaves. The chief of each section occupied himself in pouring water upon the ground to prevent the sled from taking fire by friction, or oil to facilitate the movement of the sled. When not so engaged the chief sang a love-song in time to the thwack of the overseers’ staves, as they further lacerated the bloody backs of the staggering captives. It was commonly said of a chief of a quarry-gang that he needed but _three_ canopic jars at _his_ entombment, since he lacked—a heart. At the site of the new city other dull-eyed Asiatics, similarly flogged into line, worked waist-deep in sandy pits or muddy ditches. Day in, day out, the heavy wooden brick-carriers bit into the cracked and blistered shoulders of emasculated Amu. Indeed, long before the quickening rays of Aton had mounted above the low hills which shut in the City of the Sun to the east, sweat, mud and blood had baked upon the naked backs of Ethiopian, Libyan, Canaanite and Kheftiu alike. Nay, Egyptians themselves, the down-trodden herdsmen, were as like as not torn from their ripening fields to toil perhaps at pressing bricks for Pharaoh’s palace, library and villa, or, cursed, cuffed and beaten by the shrieking taskmasters, to crack their thews at the well-nigh smoking ropes which encircle some colossal shaft, shrine or statue intended for the great temple of the sun-god Aton. From their lofty posts above the valley watchful vultures craned their necks, as they slowly circled earthward. Such a stupendous undertaking exacted a heavy toll of death. But what of deserted Thebes, of Huy and the priests of Amen? Ever since the theft of the cultus-statue of the temple by the Atonites the priests at Karnak had shut themselves up behind the great walls of the Temple of Amen. Behind those massive walls they had continued to intone the ritual of Amen to an empty shrine and the Theban Recention of the Book of the Dead to deserted courts and forgotten offering-tables. Aton and its ritual they anathematized, though an Aton shrine had, for a time, been forced upon them. In their present extremity Huy, the great High Priest of Amen, relied for support upon the people, as did indeed his brother hierophants of Memphis, Thinis and Abydos. Yet, no help came from the priests of Ptah, of Atum, of Osiris. The starving and plague-stricken peasants in whom they trusted failed to assist them. For their part the peasants well knew that no matter which of the opposing factions gained the upper hand, _their_ present state of utter wretchedness would remain unchanged. What cared they for Amen, Ptah or Aton, when the Nile-god failed them, when Hapi neglected to pour his life-giving waters over their parched and stricken fields!