“As you see, there are two words, one on the top, the other underneath.  The symbols on the top represent a single word, composed of one syllable prolonged, with its determinatives.  You know, all of you, I suppose, that the Egyptian language was phonetic, and that the hieroglyphic symbol represented the sound.  The first symbol here, the hoe, means ‘mer’, and the two pointed ellipses the prolongation of the final r:  mer-r-r.  The sitting figure with the hand to its face is what we call the ‘determinative’ of ‘thought’; and the roll of papyrus that of ‘abstraction’.  Thus we get the word ‘mer’, love, in its abstract, general, and fullest sense.  This is the hekau which can command the Upper World.”

Margaret’s face was a glory as she said in a deep, low, ringing tone: 

“Oh, but it is true.  How the old wonder-workers guessed at almighty Truth!” Then a hot blush swept her face, and her eyes fell.  Her father smiled at her lovingly as he resumed: 

“The symbolisation of the word on the reverse is simpler, though the meaning is more abstruse.  The first symbol means ‘men’, ‘abiding’, and the second, ‘ab’, ‘the heart’.  So that we get ‘abiding of heart’, or in our own language ‘patience’.  And this is the hekau to control the Lower World!”

He closed the box, and motioning us to remain as we were, he went back to his room to replace the Jewel in the safe.  When he had returned and resumed his seat, he went on: 

“That Jewel, with its mystic words, and which Queen Tera held under her hand in the sarcophagus, was to be an important factor—­probably the most important—­in the working out of the act of her resurrection.  From the first I seemed by a sort of instinct to realise this.  I kept the Jewel within my great safe, whence none could extract it; not even Queen Tera herself with her astral body.”

“Her ‘astral body’?  What is that, Father?  What does that mean?” There was a keenness in Margaret’s voice as she asked the question which surprised me a little; but Trelawny smiled a sort of indulgent parental smile, which came through his grim solemnity like sunshine through a rifted cloud, as he spoke: 

“The astral body, which is a part of Buddhist belief, long subsequent to the time I speak of, and which is an accepted fact of modern mysticism, had its rise in Ancient Egypt; at least, so far as we know.  It is that the gifted individual can at will, quick as thought itself, transfer his body whithersoever he chooses, by the dissolution and reincarnation of particles.  In the ancient belief there were several parts of a human being.  You may as well know them; so that you will understand matters relative to them or dependent on them as they occur.