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-head,’ 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 is 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 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.’”