( " 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 north-east 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 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 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--north-east 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 on 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 phrases,
'twenty-one degrees and thirteen minutes,' and 'north-east 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 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, 'north-
east 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 through the left eye 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 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?"