Meg's heart bounded. It was delightful to be one of the privileged few, to be trusted and accepted as one of the school. She felt like a great explorer who had set foot in untravelled country.
"If we stand here, without moving," she said; "quite, quite still, mayn't we stay for a little bit longer? I'm so full of wonder and amazement, Freddy. I can't begin to think intelligently or see things separately—everything is a blurred mass of white and gold and blue and priceless objects."
"No, Meg, I'm sorry—I can't let you stay. You see, I must take this light with me and get on with picking up those small objects. You'll see all of them to-night. And with out the light you would be in total darkness—real Egyptian darkness."
"That's the thing that beats me. Freddy, how do you solve the problem?—had they electric torches, or were these tombs only built for supernatural eyes to enjoy?"
"They certainly didn't use flares or torches in tombs, as the early Christians did in the Roman catacombs, for there's no trace on the walls of dirt or smoke as there is on the low walls of the catacombs. There is absolutely nothing to tell us how they lighted these vast buildings up, how they even introduced sufficient light to paint them by or to build them. Look at the minuteness of these figures."
"Surely they never built all these wonderful tombs and took the trouble to paint them with the brightest colours if they were never again to be seen with mortal eyes? I can't believe it."
"So far we don't know. 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?"