Again, he once said in a moment of relaxation of his purpose of silence:

“‘She is unlike her mother; but in both feature and colour she has a
marvellous resemblance to the pictures of Queen Tera.’

“He said that he had sent her away to people who would care for her as
he could not; and that till she became a woman she should have all the
simple pleasures that a young girl might have, and that were best for
her. I would often have talked with him about her; but he would never
say much. Once he said to me:  ‘There are reasons why I should not
speak more than is necessary. Some day you will know—and understand!’
I respected his reticence; and beyond asking after her on my return
after a journey, I have never spoken of her again. I had never seen
her till I did so in your presence. “Well, when the treasures which we had—ah!—taken from the tomb had
been brought here, Mr. Trelawny arranged their disposition himself. The mummy, all except the severed hand, he placed in the great
ironstone sarcophagus in the hall. This was wrought for the Theban
High Priest Uni, and is, as you may have remarked, all inscribed with
wonderful invocations to the old Gods of Egypt. The rest of the things
from the tomb he disposed about his own room, as you have seen. Amongst them he placed, for special reasons of his own, the mummy hand. I think he regards this as the most sacred of his possessions, with
perhaps one exception. That is the carven ruby which he calls the
‘Jewel of Seven Stars’, which he keeps in that great safe which is
locked and guarded by various devices, as you know. “I dare say you find this tedious; but I have had to explain it, so
that you should understand all up to the present. It was a long time
after my return with the mummy of Queen Tera when Mr. Trelawny
re-opened the subject with me. He had been several times to Egypt,
sometimes with me and sometimes alone; and I had been several trips, on
my own account or for him. But in all that time, nearly sixteen years,
he never mentioned the subject, unless when some pressing occasion
suggested, if it did not necessitate, a reference. “One morning early he sent for me in a hurry; I was then studying in
the British Museum, and had rooms in Hart Street. When I came, he was
all on fire with excitement. I had not seen him in such a glow since
before the news of his wife’s death. He took me at once into his room. The window blinds were down and the shutters closed; not a ray of
daylight came in. The ordinary lights in the room were not lit, but
there were a lot of powerful electric lamps, fifty candle-power at
least, arranged on one side of the room. The little bloodstone table
on which the heptagonal coffer stands was drawn to the centre of the
room. The coffer looked exquisite in the glare of light which shone on
it. It actually seemed to glow as if lit in some way from within. “‘What do you think of it?’ he asked. “‘It is like a jewel,’ I answered. ‘You may well call it the
‘sorcerer’s Magic Coffer’, if it often looks like that. It almost
seems to be alive.’

“‘Do you know why it seems so?’

“‘From the glare of the light, I suppose?’

“‘Light of course,’ he answered, ‘but it is rather the disposition of
light.’  As he spoke he turned up the ordinary lights of the room and
switched off the special ones. The effect on the stone box was
surprising; in a second it lost all its glowing effect. It was still a
very beautiful stone, as always; but it was stone and no more. “‘Do you notice anything about the arrangement of the lamps?’ he asked. “‘No!’

“‘They were in the shape of the stars in the Plough, as the stars are
in the ruby!’  The statement came to me with a certain sense of
conviction. I do not know why, except that there had been so many
mysterious associations with the mummy and all belonging to it that any
new one seemed enlightening. I listened as Trelawny went on to explain:

“‘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:

“‘One thing at a time!’ he said quietly. ‘Your first question contains
all the rest. Where are these lamps? I shall tell you:  In the tomb!’

“‘In the tomb!’ I repeated in surprise.