Famine and pestilence at home, revolt in Nubia, new mutterings of trouble along the Asiatic frontier, one and all had to give place now to the completion of this Sun-hymn, and the ritual of the Aton cult. The ritual had already been chanted in the Temple of the Sun. Indeed, it had been intoned for the first time in a little chapel erected among the now well-nigh deserted temples of Amen at Karnak. Here was bitter hearing for the exiled priest of Amen! Pharaoh was extremely anxious to hear the High Priest Merira chant his “Hymn to the Sun,” a composition which Pharaoh had written for the express use of the Priests of the Temple of Aton. In order to finish the hymn Pharaoh had shut himself up in his library with orders that on no account should he be disturbed. Ambassadors, envoys, nobles of the empire, spies and messengers, all must wait who sought an audience of the engrossed monarch. But a few moments before, Pentu, Chief Court Physician, had backed from his master’s presence, loaded down with chains and bracelets of gold. Pentu had gained some real or fancied ascendancy over Enei the Scribe in a heated argument as to a probable connection between the sun-god Ra of Heliopolis, Aton, and Adon, the Syrian God of Fertility. Pentu’s bald head glistened like the mirror clasped in the hand of his waiting daughter. Pentu’s broad smile widened, if indeed that might be, as his waiting servants hurled themselves into the dust at sight of his gleaming decorations, those “gifts which the king bestows.” “What stiff campaign hath earned such rich rewards?” asks the travel-worn Rabba, messenger of Ribaddi, one of Egypt’s vassals in Asia. “Peace, peace, soldier! Hold thy tongue, fit but to frighten lousy Sand-dwellers! Hast thou not heard? Egypt hath done with war! Corn grows upon our spearshafts, boys swim in our shields; our curved swords cut wheat and spelt, our slings kill reed-birds. The ‘gifts of Majesty’ now reach priests, poets and potters. Breath of Ra—ahem—Aton, I should have said, a soldier now must stand aside that shaven-headed sucklings from the new religious school may pass! Amemet seize me! Five hours’ waiting is enough for me! Honors to thy son’s son,” and the officer passes out. Some three hours later, Ribaddi’s urgent call for assistance, that small clay tablet upon whose safe and speedy deliverance into the hands of the Egyptian king hung the fate of Syria, Ribaddi’s last despairing cry for help, still rested in its metal tube about the impatient Rabba’s neck. Tired of his long vigil, Rabba had addressed a few somewhat pointed remarks in the direction of the painted ceiling, but intended for the large ears of Seneb the Court Usher. As a not unnatural sequel, another moment found him on the wrong side of the palace door. From the threshold of the courtyard two giggling pages made the infuriated Rabba mock bows and salutations in the Syrian manner.