He paused an instant and looked up at us. ‘The _intensity_ of belief in those days,’ he resumed, since neither of us accepted the challenge, ‘was amazing--something quite unknown anywhere in the world to-day. It was so sure, so positive; no mere speculative theories, I mean;--as though something in the climate, the exact position beneath the stars, the “attitude” of this particular stretch of earth in relation to the sun--thinned the veil between humanity--and other things. Their hierarchies of gods, you know, were not mere idols; animals, birds, monsters, and what-not, all typified spiritual forces and powers that influenced their daily life. But the strong thing is--they _knew_. People who were scientific as they were did not swallow foolish superstitions. They made colours that could last six thousand years, even in the open air; and without instruments they measured accurately--an enormously difficult and involved calculation--the precession of the equinoxes. You’ve been to Denderah?’--he suddenly glanced again at me. ‘No! Well, the minds that realised the zodiacal signs could hardly believe, you know, that Hathor was a cow!’ Isley coughed. He was about to interrupt, but before he could find words, Moleson was off again, some new quality in his tone and manner that was almost aggressive. The hints he offered seemed more than hints. There was a strange conviction in his heart. I think he was skirting a bigger thing that he and his companion knew, yet that his real object was to see in how far I was open to attack--how far my sympathy might be with them. I became aware that he and George Isley shared this bigger thing. It was based, I felt, on some certain knowledge that experiment had brought them. ‘Think of the grand teaching of Aknahton, that young Pharaoh who regenerated the entire land and brought it to its immense prosperity. He taught the worship of the sun, but not of the visible sun. The deity had neither form nor shape. The great disk of glory was but the manifestation, each beneficent ray ending in a hand that blessed the world. It was a god of everlasting energy, love and power, yet men could know it at first hand in their daily lives, worshipping it at dawn and sunset with passionate devotion. No anthropomorphic idol masqueraded in _that_!’ An extraordinary glow was about him as he said it. The same minute he lowered his voice, shifting the key perceptibly. He kept looking up at me through half-closed eyelids.