'I broke every
convention in my land.'
'Oh, noble! And what happened?'
'What happens when you strip the cover off a hornet's nest? The raw
fact of life is that mankind is just a little lower than the angels, and
the conventions are based on that fact in order that men may become
angels. But if you begin, as I did, by the convention that men are
angels they will assuredly become bigger beasts than ever.'
'That,' I said firmly, 'is altogether out-of-date. You should have
brought a larger mentality, a more vital uplift, and - er - all that sort
of thing, to bear on - all that sort of thing, you know.'
'I did,' said Ahkenaton gloomily. 'It broke me!' And he, too, went dumb
among the ruins.
There is a valley of rocks and stones in every shade of red and brown,
called the Valley of the Kings, where a little oil-engine coughs behind
its hand all day long, grinding electricity to light the faces of dead
Pharaohs a hundred feet underground. All down the valley, during the
tourist season, stand char-a-bancs and donkeys and sand-carts, with here
and there exhausted couples who have dropped out of the processions and
glisten and fan themselves in some scrap of shade. Along the sides of
the valley are the tombs of the kings neatly numbered, as it might be
mining adits with concrete steps leading up to them, and iron grilles
that lock of nights, and doorkeepers of the Department of Antiquities
demanding the proper tickets.
