“I will tell you. Ninety years ago, a Frenchman was living in this mysterious land of Egypt; knowing no more of the secret writing on palaces and tombs and temples than do you, little maiden. But while he was at _Rosetta_, which is a town on the sea coast not far from where we stand, he found a broken block of marble—a fragment from what was once, perhaps, a mighty temple. Upon it he saw the secret marks he could not understand, but _beneath_ it were some lines in Greek, which he and other people _could_ read. Now, thought the Frenchman, ‘What if these Greek words should be the translation of those hieroglyphics above, which no one for thousands of years has been able to decipher?’ So he brought the broken stone away with him. And the scholars examined it, and at last, after patient study, comparing the Greek words, which they _could_ understand, with the mysterious signs and pictures above, they learnt to read _them_ also. And so, from that piece of black marble which now rests in the great museum of your great city of London, learned men have made Egypt give up one of its many secrets. All that is written on columns, walls and tombs, can now be read by the scholars who have studied the hieroglyphic writing of this ancient land, and translated it into English and French, and all the languages of men who live to-day. Was I not right to call ‘the _Rosetta_ Stone’ a stone of magic, a gateway into the Past?” [Illustration: PHARAOH IN HIS CHARIOT] “Oh, yes!” exclaimed Rachel, drawing a long breath. “If that Rosetta Stone had never been found, people would still be looking at the—what did you call the writing? Oh yes, the _hieroglyphics_, and wondering what they mean, wouldn’t they? But you know, of course? You have always known.” “I wrote signs and figures like these, six thousand years ago,” replied Sheshà, gazing upon the mighty unfinished Pyramid upon which, like clustering bees, the brown-skinned, half-naked men were slaving. “Will you read me something that’s written there? Please read what that man has just finished carving,” begged Rachel, pointing to a youth who was working at the base of the Pyramid. “What do those signs mean?” “They record,” said Sheshà, glancing at them, “that a hundred thousand men were always kept working upon this tomb. These slaves that you behold are the last hundred thousand, for as you see the Pyramid is nearly built. But for twenty years previous to this moment of Past time, every day, a hundred thousand men have been working in the same way as these poor slaves before your eyes.” Rachel was just trying to put into words something of all the wonder and bewilderment she felt, when a strain of music that sounded rather faint and far away made her turn quickly. The sight she saw was so wonderful that I scarcely know how to describe it. “Who is this?” she whispered. “Why are the people bowing down before him?”