“My dear child, do be careful,” cried the Dean, “it’s priceless.”
But Kit put it under one arm as though it had been a milk pail and tapped around the inside with her knuckles, listening.
“That’s a perfectly good hollow jug,” she said solemnly. “Just you tap it, and listen, Uncle Bart. I’ll bet they’ve hidden something inside the outside and that Ra has guarded it all these years.”
“Just a moment, just a moment, my dear,” exclaimed the Dean, smiling like a happy boy. “You’ve given me an idea. This may be a cryptogram, or an ideographic cipher. Just a moment, now, don’t speak to me.”
He sat down at the desk and figured laboriously for nearly twenty minutes, working out the inscription in cipher, while Kit stared at him delightedly. After all, it was gratifying, she thought, to have somebody in the family who could take a little remark made thousands of years ago in Egypt and make sense out of it today. She waited patiently until he had finished. His hands were trembling as he reached for the urn.
“The circle,” he repeated, “the circle. ‘Ra in his circle shall guard Amenotaph.’ The secret lies in the circle, Kit. Do you suppose it could mean the rim of the urn?”
Kit studied the urn again and with the fingertip she traced the inscription and stopped when she came to a small circle in black and red outline.
“Do you suppose Ra lives here, Uncle Bart?” she asked, poking at it thoughtfully. She peered on the inner side at the corresponding spot to the circle, and gave a little cry of excitement. There was the faintest sign of a circle here also. “See,” she cried, “when you push on this side, the other gives a little bit.”
The Dean could not speak. He took the urn from her over to the window and carefully examined the inner circle through a microscope.
“Yes,” he said, fervently, “you are perfectly right, my dear. The circle moves. I think I shall have to send it to Washington. I would not take the responsibility of trying to remove it myself.”