w. Perhaps the _Ka_, the part of a man who lived
for ever in his eternal home, had supernatural powers of sight. The
joys were for him. But how did they paint them in the darkness?"

"Is that fact ever alluded to?"

"No, the _Ka_ is treated in a perfectly human and natural manner. All
his pleasures were material ones. It's very odd--but we'll discover
the secret yet."

"If they had some secret form of wireless telegraphy, they may just as
well have had some secret means of producing light, don't you think?
You've not discovered their wireless code, yet, have you?"

"No, that's still a secret. And they certainly used no apparatus for
electric light, if they knew of it. There are no wires in the tombs."
He laughed. "You know, there is a lift in the Forum at Rome; it was
used for bringing the beasts up to the arena from underground cages.
It is in use to-day, I believe."

"We've not discovered one hundredth part of what they had or hadn't,"
Meg said. "They probably used radium to cure diseases."

"The Etruscans had dentists who knew the use of gold for stopping
teeth--we know that."

"Yes, I've seen a skull with gold-stopped teeth in the Etruscan Museum
at Rome."

They had reached the beginning of the steep climb which was to take
them up to the open desert. Freddy left them with the assurance that
he would come back to lunch. The two policemen were to be responsible
for the guarding of the tomb. If anything was disturbed, they would be
held to account.

When Margaret and Michael at last reached the open desert, Meg flung
herself down and gazed up into the sky. It had never seemed so blue
and beautiful before. The clear air rushed into her lungs. Oh, the
sweetness and the dearness of the daylight and the real world! The joy
it was to press her body close, close to the desert! She put her face
down to it. Nothing in all her life had ever been so reassuring and
comforting.

Michael was seated beside her. The world was so wide and open and
bewildering; he felt giddy, stupefied. Surrounding them was the
ever-wonderful light of the desert, the yellow sands and, in the
distance, the masses of moving figures, working like busy insects at
the clearing away of the tomb-rubbish. Native chants and the noise of
picks and spades shovelling up the debris broke the stillness. Life
was just as it had been for the last two months. The desert was as it
had been before the tribes of Israel followed Moses.