Here Legrand, having re-heated the parchment, submitted It 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+.)4+);806*;48!8`60))85;]8*:+*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(+?3
4;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 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. 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 on, 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 is removed by the signature. The pun on 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. As it was, I assumed 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 should
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 division, 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.
9 2 " 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 however predominates 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,' &c. In the present instance we see it doubled 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
the most usual; let us see, therefore, whether they 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.' On 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, where known, 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 this 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 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 hostel'?"
"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 division 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 division, so as to increase the difficulty of solution. Now, a
not overacute 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 --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 a 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 busied in reflection, my eyes fell upon a narrow ledge in the
eastern face of the rock, perhaps a yard below the summit on 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 phrases, '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 on it unless 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 overtopped 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."
"I suppose," said I, "you missed the spot, in the first attempt at digging
through Jupiter's stupidity in letting the bug fall through the right instead of
the left of the skull."
"Precisely. This mistake made a difference of about two inches and a half in
the 'shot' --that is to say, in the position of the peg nearest the tree; and
had the treasure been beneath the 'shot,' the error would have been of little
moment; but the 'shot,' together with the nearest point of the tree, were merely
two points for the establishment of a line of direction; of course the error,
however trivial in the beginning, increased as we proceeded with the line, and
by the time we had gone fifty feet, threw us quite off the scent. But for my
deep-seated convictions that treasure was here somewhere actually buried, we
might have had all our labor in vain."
"I presume the fancy of the skull, of letting fall a bullet through the
skull's eye --was suggested to Kidd by the piratical flag. No doubt he felt a
kind of poetical consistency in recovering his money through this ominous
insignium."
"Perhaps so; still I cannot help thinking that common-sense had quite as
much to do with the matter as poetical consistency. To be visible from the
devil's-seat, it was necessary that the object, if small, should be white; and
there is nothing like your human skull for retaining and even increasing its
whiteness under exposure to all vicissitudes of weather."
"But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging the beetle --how
excessively odd! I was sure you were mad. And why did you insist on letting fall
the bug, instead of a bullet, from the skull?"
"Why, to be frank, I felt somewhat annoyed by your evident suspicions
touching my sanity, and so resolved to punish you quietly, in my own way, by a
little bit of sober mystification. For this reason I swung the beetle, and for
this reason I let it fall from the tree. An observation of yours about its great
weight suggested the latter idea."
"Yes, I perceive; and now there is only one point which puzzles me. What are
we to make of the skeletons found in the hole?"
"That is a question I am no more able to answer than yourself. There seems,
however, only one plausible way of accounting for them --and yet it is dreadful
to believe in such atrocity as my suggestion would imply. It is clear that Kidd
--if Kidd indeed secreted this treasure, which I doubt not --it is clear that he
must have had assistance in the labor. But, the worst of this labor concluded,
he may have thought it expedient to remove all participants in his secret.
Perhaps a couple of blows with a mattock were sufficient, while his coadjutors
were busy in the pit; perhaps it required a dozen --who shall tell?"
-THE END-