“’For sixteen years I have never ceased to think of that adventure, or to try to find a clue to the mysteries which came before us; but never until last night did I seem to find a solution.  I think I must have dreamed of it, for I woke all on fire about it.  I jumped out of bed with a determination of doing something, before I quite knew what it was that I wished to do.  Then, all at once, the purpose was clear before me.  There were allusions in the writing on the walls of the tomb to the seven stars of the Great Bear that go to make up the Plough; and the North was again and again emphasized.  The same symbols were repeated with regard to the “Magic Box”, as we called it.  We had already noticed those peculiar translucent spaces in the stone of the box.  You remember the hieroglyphic writing had told that the jewel came from the heart of an aerolite, and that the coffer was cut from it also.  It might be, I thought, that the light of the seven stars, shining in the right direction, might have some effect on the box, or something within it.  I raised the blind and looked out.  The Plough was high in the heavens, and both its stars and the Pole Star were straight opposite the window.  I pulled the table with the coffer out into the light, and shifted it until the translucent patches were in the direction of the stars.  Instantly the box began to glow, as you saw it under the lamps, though but slightly.  I waited and waited; but the sky clouded over, and the light died away.  So I got wires and lamps—­you know how often I use them in experiments—­and tried the effect of electric light.  It took me some time to get the lamps properly placed, so that they would correspond to the parts of the stone, but the moment I got them right the whole thing began to glow as you have seen it.

“’I could get no further, however.  There was evidently something wanting.  All at once it came to me that if light could have some effect there should be in the tomb some means of producing light, for there could not be starlight in the Mummy Pit in the cavern.  Then the whole thing seemed to become clear.  On the bloodstone table, which has a hollow carved in its top, into which the bottom of the coffer fits, I laid the Magic Coffer; and I at once saw that the odd protuberances so carefully wrought in the substance of the stone corresponded in a way to the stars in the constellation.  These, then, were to hold lights.

“‘Eureka!’ I cried.  ‘All we want now is the lamps.’” I tried placing the electric lights on, or close to, the protuberances.  But the glow never came to the stone.  So the conviction grew on me that there were special lamps made for the purpose.  If we could find them, a step on the road to solving the mystery should be gained.

“‘But what about the lamps?’ I asked.  ’Where are they?  When are we to discover them?  How are we to know them if we do find them?  What—­”

“He stopped me at once: