into quick
effect in the city of Atlantis. Her modern theory was that the country
and all therein existed only for the good of the Empress, and when she
had a desire, no cost could possibly be too great in its carrying out.

She had given forth her edict concerning the burying alive of Nais, and
though the words were that I was to build the throne of stone, it was an
understood thing that the manual labour was to be done for me by others.
Heralds made the proclamation in every ward of the city, and masons,
labourers, stonecutters, sculptors, engineers, and architects took hands
from whatever was occupying them for the moment, and hastened to the
rendezvous. The architects chose a chief who gave directions, and the
lesser architects and the engineers saw these carried into effect. Any
material within the walls of the city on which they set their seal,
was taken at once without payment or compensation; and as the blocks of
stone they chose were the most monstrous that could be got, they were
forced to demolish no few buildings to give them passage.

I have before spoken of the modern rage for erecting new palaces and
pyramids, and even though at the moment an army of rebels was battering
with war engines at the city walls, the building guilds were steadily
at work, and their skill (with Phorenice's marvellous invention to aid
them) was constantly on the increase. True, they could not move such
massive blocks of stone as those which the early Gods planted for the
sacred circle of our Lord the Sun, but they had got rams and trucks and
cranes which could handle amazing bulks.

The throne was to be erected in the open square before the royal
pyramid. Seven tiers of stone were there for a groundwork, each a
knee-height deep, and each cut in the front with three steps. In the
uppermost layer was a cavity made to hold the body of Nais, and above
this was poised the vast block which formed the seat of the throne
itself.

Throughout the night, to the light of torches, relay after relay of the
stonecutters, and the masons, and the sweating labourers had toiled over
bringing up the stone and dressing it into fit shape, and laying it in
due position; and the engineers had built machines for lifting, and the
architects had proved that each stone lay in its just and perfect place.
Whips cracked, and men fainted with the labour, but so soon as one was
incapable another pressed forward into his place. No delay was brooked
when Phoren