Book: Short Stories

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"Well, Jupiter picked up the parchment, wrapped the beetle in it, and
gave it to me. Soon afterwards we turned to go home, and on the way
met Lieutenant G----. I showed him the insect, and he begged me to let
him take it to the fort. Upon my consenting, he thrust it forthwith
into his waistcoat pocket, without the parchment in which it had been
wrapped, and which I had continued to hold in my hand during his
inspection. Perhaps he dreaded my changing my mind, and thought it
best to make sure of the prize at once--you know how enthusiastic he
is on all subjects connected with Natural History. At the same time,
without being conscious of it, I must have deposited the parchment in
my own pocket.

"You remember that when I went to the table, for the purpose of making
a sketch of the beetle, I found no paper where it was usually kept, I
looked in the drawer, and found none there. I searched my pockets,
hoping to find an old letter, when my hand fell upon the parchment. I
thus detail the precise mode in which it came into my possession; for
the circumstances impressed me with peculiar force.

"No doubt you will think me fanciful, but I had already established a
kind of _connection_. I had put together two links of a great chain.
There was a boat lying upon a seacoast, and not far from the boat was
a parchment--_not a paper_--with a skull depicted upon it. You will,
of course, ask, 'Where is the connection?' I reply that the skull, or
death's-head, is the well-known emblem of the pirate. The flag of the
death's-head is hoisted in all engagements.

"I have said that the scrap was parchment, and not paper. Parchment is
durable--almost imperishable. Matters of little moment are rarely
consigned to parchment, since, for the mere ordinary purposes of
drawing or writing, it is not nearly so well adapted as paper. This
reflection suggested some meaning--some relevancy--in the
death's-head. I did not fail to observe, also, the _form_ of the
parchment. Although one of its corners had been, by some accident,
destroyed, it could be seen that the original form was oblong. It was
just such a slip, indeed, as might have been chosen for a
memorandum--for a record of something to be long remembered and
carefully preserved."

"But," I interposed, "you say that the skull was _not_ upon the
parchment when you made the drawing of the beetle. How, then, do you
trace any connection between the boat and the skull--since this
latter, according to your own admission, must have been designed (God
only knows how or by whom) at some period subsequent to your sketching
the _scarabaeus_?"

"Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery; although the secret, at this
point, I had comparatively little difficulty in solving. My steps were
sure, and could afford but a single result. I reasoned, for example,
thus: When I drew the _scarabaeus_, there was no skull apparent upon
the parchment. When I had completed the drawing I gave it to you, and
observed you narrowly until you returned it, _You_, therefore, did not
design the skull, and no one else was present to do it. Then it was
not done by human agency. And nevertheless it was done.

"At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to remember, and _did_
remember, with entire distinctness, every incident which occurred
about the period in question. The weather was chilly (oh, rare and
happy accident!), and a fire was blazing upon the hearth. I was heated
with exercise, and sat near the table. You, however, had drawn a chair
close to the chimney. Just as I placed the parchment in your hand, and
as you were in the act of inspecting it, Wolf, the Newfoundland,
entered, and leaped upon your shoulders. With, your left hand you
caressed him and kept him off, while your right, holding the
parchment, was permitted to fall listlessly between your knees, and in
close proximity to the fire. At one moment I thought the blaze had
caught it, and was about to caution you, but before I could speak you
had withdrawn it, and were engaged in its examination. When I
considered all these particulars, I doubted not for a moment that
_heat_ had been the agent in bringing to light, upon the parchment,
the skull which I saw designed upon it. You are well aware that
chemical preparations exist, and have existed time out of mind, by
means of which it is possible to write upon either paper or vellum, so
that the characters shall become visible only when subjected to the
action of fire. Zaffre[16], digested in _aqua regia_[17], and diluted
with four times its weight of water, is sometimes employed; a green
tint results. The regulus[18] of cobalt, dissolved in spirit of nitre,
gives a red. These colors disappear at longer or shorter intervals
after the material written upon cools, but again become apparent upon
the re-application of heat.

"I now scrutinized the death's-head with care. Its outer edges--the
edges of the drawing nearest the edge of the vellum--were far more
_distinct_ than the others. It was clear that the action of the
caloric had been imperfect or unequal. I immediately kindled a fire,
and subjected every portion of the parchment to a glowing heat. At
first, the only effect was the strengthening of the faint lines in the
skull; but, upon persevering in the experiment, there became visible,
at the corner of the slip diagonally opposite to the spot in which the
death's-head was delineated, the figure of what I at first supposed to
be a goat. A closer scrutiny, however, satisfied me that it was
intended for a kid."

"Ha! ha!" said I; "to be sure I have no right to laugh at you--a
million and a half of money is too serious a matter for mirth--but you
are not about to establish a third link in your chain: you will not
find any especial connection between your pirates and a goat; pirates,
you know, have nothing to do with goats; they appertain to the farming
interests."

"But I have said that the figure was _not_ that of a goat."

"Well, a kid, then--pretty much the same thing."

"Pretty much, but not altogether," said Legrand.

"You may have heard of one _Captain_ Kidd[19]. I at once looked on the
figure of the animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature.
I say signature because its position upon the vellum suggested this
idea. The death's-head at the corner diagonally opposite had, in the
same manner, the air of a stamp, or seal. But I was sorely put out by
the absence of all else--of the body to my imagined instrument--of the
text for my context."

"I presume you expected to find a letter between the stamp and the
signature."

"Something of the kind. The fact is, I felt irresistibly impressed
with a presentiment of some vast good fortune impending. I can
scarcely say why. Perhaps, after all, it was rather a desire than an
actual belief; but do you know that Jupiter's silly words, about the
bug being of solid gold, had a remarkable effect upon my fancy? And
then the series of accidents and coincidences--these were so _very_
extraordinary. Do you observe how mere an accident it was that these
events should have occurred upon the _sole_ day of all the year in
which it has been, or may be, sufficiently cool for fire, and that
without the fire, or without the intervention of the dog at the
precise moment in which he appeared, I should, never have become aware
of the death's-head, and so never the possessor of the treasure?"

"But proceed--I am all impatience."

"Well; you have heard, of course, the many stories current--the
thousand vague rumors afloat about money buried, somewhere, upon the
Atlantic coast, by Kidd and his associates. These rumors must have had
some foundation in fact. And that the rumors have existed so long and
so continuously could have resulted, it appeared to me, only from the
circumstance of the buried treasure still _remaining_ entombed. Had
Kidd concealed his plunder for a time, and afterwards reclaimed it,
the rumors would scarcely have reached us in their present unvarying
form. You will observe that the stories told are all about
money-seekers, not about money-finders. Had the pirate recovered his
money, there the affair would have dropped. It seemed to me that some
accident--say the loss of a memorandum indicating its locality--had
deprived him of the means of recovering it, and that this accident had
become known to his followers who otherwise might never have heard
that treasure had been concealed at all, and who, busying themselves
in vain, because unguided attempts to regain it had given first birth,
and then universal currency, to the reports which are now so common.
Have you ever heard of any important treasure being unearthed along
the coast?"

"Never."

"But that Kidd's accumulations were immense is well known. I took it
for granted, therefore, that the earth still held them; and you will
scarcely be surprised when I tell you that I felt a hope, nearly
amounting to certainty, that the parchment so strangely found involved
a lost record of the place of deposit."

"But how did you proceed?"

"I held the vellum again to the fire, after increasing the heat; but
nothing appeared. I now thought it possible that the coating of dirt
might have something to do with the failure; so I carefully rinsed the
parchment by pouring warm water over it, and, having done this, I
placed it in a tin pan, with the skull downwards, and put the pan upon
a furnace of lighted charcoal. In a few minutes, the pan having become
thoroughly heated, I removed the slip, and to my inexpressible joy,
found it spotted, in several places, with what appeared to be figures
arranged in lines. Again I placed it in the pan, and suffered it to
remain another minute. Upon taking it off, the whole was just as you
see it now."

Here Legrand, having reheated the parchment, submitted it to my
inspection, The following characters were rudely traced, in a red tint
between the death's-head and the goat:

"53‡‡†305))6*;4826)4‡.);806*;48†8
¶60))85;1‡(;:‡*8†83(88)5*†;46(;88*96
?;8)*‡(;485);5*†2:*‡(;4956*2(5*--4)8
¶8*;4069285);)6†8)4‡‡;1(‡9;48081;8:8‡
1;48†85;4)485†528806*81(‡9;48;(88;4
(‡?34;48)4‡;161;:188;‡?;"

"But," said I, returning him the slip, "I am as much in the dark as
ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda[20] awaiting me on my solution
of this enigma, I am quite sure that I should be unable to earn them."

"And yet," said Legrand, "the solution is by no means so difficult as
you might be led to imagine from the first hasty inspection of the
characters. These characters, as any one might readily guess, form a
cipher, that is to say, they convey a meaning; but then, from what is
known of Kidd, I could not suppose him capable of constructing any of
the more abstruse cryptographs[21]. I made up my mind, at once, that
this was of a simple species--such, however, as would appear, to the
crude intellect of the sailor, absolutely insoluble without the key."

"And you really solved it?"

"Readily; I have solved others of an abstruseness ten thousand times
greater. Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, have led me to
take interest in such riddles, and it may well be doubted whether
human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which human
ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve. In fact, having
once established connected and legible characters, I scarcely gave a
thought to the mere difficulty of developing their import.

"In the present case--indeed, in all cases of secret writing--the
first question regards the _language_ of the cipher; for the
principles of solution, so far especially as the more simple ciphers
are concerned, depend upon, and are varied by, the genius of the
particular idiom. In general, there is no alternative but experiment
(directed by probabilities) of every tongue known to him who attempts
the solution, until the true one be attained. But, with the cipher now
before us, all difficulty was removed by the signature. The pun upon
the word 'Kidd' is appreciable in no other language than the English.
But for this consideration I should have begun my attempts with the
Spanish and French, as the tongues in which a secret of this kind
would most naturally have been written by a pirate of the Spanish
main[22]. As it was, I assume the cryptograph to be English.

"You observe there are no divisions between the words. Had there been
divisions, the task would have been comparatively easy. In such case I
would have commenced with a collation and analysis of the shorter
words; and had a word of a single letter occurred, as is most likely
(_a_ or _I_, for example), I should have considered the solution as
assured. But there being no divisions, my first step was to ascertain
the predominant letters, as well as the least frequent,

"Counting all, I constructed a table thus;--

Of the character 8 there are 33.
; " 26.
4 " 19.
‡) " 16.
* " 13.
5 " 12.
6 " 11.
†1 " 8.
0 " 6.
92 " 5.
:3 " 4.
? " 3.
¶ " 2.
--. " 1.

"Now, in English, the letter which most frequently occurs is _e_.
Afterwards, the succession runs thus: _a o i d h n r s t u y c f g l m
w b k p q x z_. E predominates, however, so remarkably that an
individual sentence of any length is rarely seen in which it is not
the prevailing character.

"Here, then, we have, in the very beginning, the groundwork for
something more than a mere guess. The general use which may be made of
the table is obvious--but in this particular cipher we shall only very
partially require its aid. As our predominant character is 8, we will
commence by assuming it as the _e_ of the natural alphabet. To verify
the supposition, let us observe if the 8 be seen often in couples--for
_e_ is doubled with great frequency in English--in such words, for
example, as 'meet,' 'fleet,' 'speed,' 'seen,' 'been,' 'agree,' etc. In
the present instance we see it doubled no less than five times,
although the cryptograph is brief.

"Let us assume 8, then, as _e_. Now of all _words_ in the language,
'the' is most usual; let us see, therefore, whether there are not
repetitions of any three characters, in the same order of collocation,
the last of them being 8. If we discover repetitions of such letters,
so arranged, they will most probably represent the word 'the.' Upon
inspection, we find no less than seven such arrangements, the
characters being ;48. We may, therefore, assume that the semicolon
represents _t_, that 4 represents _h_, and that 8 represents _e_--the
last being now well confirmed. Thus a great step has been taken.

"But, having established a single word, we are enabled to establish a
vastly important point; that is to say, several commencements and
terminations of other words. Let us refer, for example, to the last
instance but one, in which the combination ;48 occurs--not far from
the end of the cipher. We know that the semicolon immediately ensuing
is the commencement of a word, and, of the six characters succeeding
this 'the,' we are cognizant of no less than five. Let us set these
characters down, thus, by the letters we know them to represent,
leaving a space for the unknown--

t eeth.

"Here we are enabled, at once, to discard the '_th_,' as forming no
portion of the word commencing with the first _t_; since by experiment
of the entire alphabet for a letter adapted to the vacancy, we
perceive that no word can be formed of which this _th_ can be a part.
We are thus narrowed into

t ee,

and, going through the alphabet, if necessary, as before, we arrive at
the word 'tree,' as the sole possible reading. We thus gain another
letter, _r_, represented by (, with the words 'the tree" in
juxtaposition.

"Looking beyond these words, for a short distance, we again see the
combination ;48, and employ it by way of _termination_ to what
immediately precedes. We have thus this arrangement:

the tree ;4 (‡?34 the,

or, substituting the natural letters, whereknown, it reads thus:

the tree thr‡?3h the.

"Now, if, in place of the unknown characters, we leave blank spaces,
or substitute dots, we read thus:

the tree thr...h the,

when the word '_through_' makes itself evident at once. But the
discovery gives us three new letters, _o, u_, and _g_, represented by
‡ ? and 3.

"Looking now, narrowly, through the cipher for combinations of known,
characters, we find, not very far from the beginning, this
arrangement.

83(88, or, egree,

which, plainly, is the conclusion of the word 'degree' and gives us
another letter, _d_, represented by †.

"Four letters beyond the word 'degree,' we perceive the combination.

;46(;88*.

"Translating the known characters, and representing the unknown by
dots, as before, we read thus:

th.rtee,

an arrangement immediately suggestive of the word 'thirteen,' and
again furnishing us with two new characters, _i_, and _n_, represented
by 6 and *.

"Referring, now, to the beginning of the cryptograph, we find the
combination,

53 ‡‡†.

"Translating, as before, we obtain

.good,

which assures us that the first letter is _A_, and that the first two
words are 'A good.'

"To avoid confusion, it is now time that we arrange our key, as far as
discovered, in a tabular form. It will stand thus:

5 represents a
† " d
8 " e
3 " g
4 " h
6 " i
* " n
‡ " o
( " r
; " t

"We have, therefore, no less than ten of the most important letters
represented, and it will be unnecessary to proceed with the details of
the solution. I have said enough to convince you that ciphers of this
nature are readily soluble, and to give you some insight into the
rationale[23] of their development. But be assured that the specimen
before us appertains to the very simplest species of cryptograph. It
now only remains to give you the full translation of the characters
upon the parchment, as unriddled. Here it is:

"'_A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's seat
twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes northeast and by
north main branch seventh limb east side shoot from the left
eye of the death's-head a bee-line from the tree through the
shot fifty feet out_.'"

"But," said I, "the enigma seems still in as bad a condition as ever.
How is it possible to extort a meaning from all this jargon about
'devil's seats,' death's-heads,' and 'bishop's hotels'?"

"I confess," replied Legrand, "that the matter still wears a serious
aspect, when regarded with a casual glance. My first endeavor was to
divide the sentence into the natural divisions intended by the
cryptographist."

"You mean to punctuate it?"

"Something of that kind."

"But how was it possible to effect this?"

"I reflected that it had been a _point_ with the writer to run his
words together without divisions, so as to increase the difficulty of
solution. Now, a not over acute man, in pursuing such, an object,
would be nearly certain to overdo the matter. When, in the course of
his composition, he arrived at a break in his subject which would
naturally require a pause, or a point, he would be exceedingly apt to
run his characters, at this place, more than usually close together.
If you will observe the Ms. in the present instance, you will easily
detect five such cases of unusual crowding. Acting on this hint, I
made the division thus:

"'_A good glass in the bishop's hostel in the devil's
seat--twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes--northeast and
by north--main branch seventh limb east side--shoot from the
left eye of the death's-head--a bee-line from the tree
through the shot fifty feet out_.'"

"Even this division," said I, "leaves me still in the dark."

"It left me also in the dark," replied Legrand, "for a few days,
during which I made diligent inquiry, in the neighborhood of
Sullivan's Island, for any building, which went by the name of the
'Bishop's Hotel'--for of course I dropped the obsolete word 'hostel.'
Gaining no information on the subject, I was on the point of extending
my sphere of search, and proceeding in a more systematic manner, when,
one morning, it entered into my head, quite suddenly, that this
'Bishop's Hostel' might have some reference to an old family, of the
name of Bessop, which, time out of mind, had held possession of an
ancient manor-house, about four miles to the northward of the island.
I accordingly went over to the plantation, and reinstituted my
inquiries among the older negroes of the place. At length one of the
most aged of the women said that she had heard of such a place as
_Bessop's Castle_ and thought that she could guide me to it, but that
it was not a castle, nor tavern, but a high rock.

"I offered to pay her well for her trouble, and, after some demur, she
consented to accompany me to the spot. We found it without much
difficulty, when, dismissing her, I proceeded to examine the place.
The 'castle' consisted of an irregular assemblage of cliffs and
rocks--one of the latter being quite remarkable for its height as well
as for its insulated and artificial appearance, I clambered to its
apex, and then felt much at a loss as to what should be next done.

"While I was buried in reflection, my eyes fell upon a narrow ledge in
the eastern face of the rock, perhaps a yard below the summit upon
which I stood. This ledge projected about eighteen inches, and was not
more than a foot wide, while a niche in the cliff just above it gave
it a rude resemblance to one of the hollow-backed chairs used by our
ancestors. I made no doubt that here was the 'devil's seat' alluded to
in the Ms., and now I seemed to grasp the full secret of the riddle.

"The 'good glass,' I knew, could have reference to nothing but a
telescope; for the word 'glass' is rarely employed in any other sense
by seamen. Now here, I at once saw, was a telescope to be used, and a
definite point of view, _admitting no variation_, from which to use
it. Nor did I hesitate to believe that the phrase 'twenty-one degrees
and thirteen minutes' and 'northeast and by north,' were intended as
directions for the levelling of the glass. Greatly excited by these
discoveries, I hurried home, procured a telescope, and returned to the
rock.

"I let myself down to the ledge, and found that it was impossible to
retain a seat upon it except in one particular position. This fact
confirmed my preconceived idea. I proceeded to use the glass. Of
course the 'twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes' could allude to
nothing but elevation above the visible horizon, since the horizontal
direction was clearly indicated by the words 'northeast and by north.'
This latter direction I at once established by means of a
pocket-compass; then, pointing the glass as nearly at an angle of
twenty-one degrees of elevation as I could do it by guess, I moved it
cautiously up or down, until my attention was arrested by a circular
rift or opening in the foliage of a large tree that over-topped its
fellows in the distance. In the centre of this rift I perceived a
white spot, but could not, at first, distinguish what it was.
Adjusting the focus of the telescope, I again looked, and now made it
out to be a human skull.

"On this discovery I was so sanguine as to consider the enigma solved;
for the phrase 'main branch, seventh limb, east side' could refer only
to the position of the skull on the tree, while 'shoot from the left
eye of the death's-head' admitted also of but one interpretation, in
regard to a search for buried treasure. I perceived that the design
was to drop a bullet from the left eye of the skull, and that a
bee-line, or in other words, a straight line, drawn from the nearest
point of the trunk through 'the shot' (or the spot where the bullet
fell) and thence extended to a distance of fifty feet, would indicate
a definite point--and beneath this point I thought it at least
_possible_ that a deposit of value lay concealed."

"All this." I said, "is exceedingly clear, and, although ingenious,
still simple and explicit. When you left the Bishop's Hotel, what
then?"

"Why, having carefully taken the bearings of the tree, I turned
homewards. The instant that I left the 'devil's seat,' however, the
circular rift vanished; nor could I get a glimpse of it afterwards,
turn, as I would. What seems to me the chief ingenuity in this whole
business is the fact (for repeated experiment has convinced me it _is_
a fact) that the circular opening in question is visible from no other
attainable point of view than that afforded by the narrow ledge on the
face of the rock.

"In this expedition to the 'Bishop's Hotel' I had been attended by
Jupiter, who had no doubt observed for some weeks past the abstraction
of my demeanor, and took especial care not to leave me alone. But, on
the next day, getting up very early, I contrived to give him the slip,
and went into the hills in search of the tree. After much toil I found
it. When I came home at night my valet proposed to give me a flogging.
With the rest of the adventure I believe you are as well acquainted as
myself."

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