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
continuous, 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 re-heated 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‡)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;4
8†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 awaiting me upon 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 lead 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 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. 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, 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 so remarkably that an individual sentence of
any length is rarely seen, in which it is not the prevailing character.
“Here, then, we leave, 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 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; represents t, 4 represents
h, and 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; 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.’
“It is now time that we arrange our key, as far as discovered, in a
tabular form, to avoid confusion. 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 forty-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 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 upon this hint, I made the division thus: ‘A good
glass in the Bishop’s hostel in the Devil’s seat--forty-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 re-instituted 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 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, “forty-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 ‘forty-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 forty-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.
“Upon 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 upon 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 upon 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 impressions that treasure was here somewhere actually
buried, we might have had all our labor in vain.”
“But your grandiloquence, and your conduct in swinging the beetle--how
excessively odd! I was sure you were mad. And why did you insist upon
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 it 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 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?”
?--------------------------------------------------------
FOUR BEASTS IN ONE--THE HOMO-CAMELEOPARD
Chacun a ses vertus.
Crebillon’s Xerxes.
ANTIOCHUS EPIPHANES is very generally looked upon as the Gog of the
prophet Ezekiel. This honor is, however, more properly attributable to
Cambyses, the son of Cyrus. And, indeed, the character of the
Syrian monarch does by no means stand in need of any adventitious
embellishment. His accession to the throne, or rather his usurpation of
the sovereignty, a hundred and seventy-one years before the coming
of Christ; his attempt to plunder the temple of Diana at Ephesus; his
implacable hostility to the Jews; his pollution of the Holy of Holies;
and his miserable death at Taba, after a tumultuous reign of eleven
years, are circumstances of a prominent kind, and therefore more
generally noticed by the historians of his time than the impious,
dastardly, cruel, silly, and whimsical achievements which make up the
sum total of his private life and reputation.
Let us suppose, gentle reader, that it is now the year of the world
three thousand eight hundred and thirty, and let us, for a few minutes,
imagine ourselves at that most grotesque habitation of man, the
remarkable city of Antioch. To be sure there were, in Syria and other
countries, sixteen cities of that appellation, besides the one to which
I more particularly allude. But ours is that which went by the name of
Antiochia Epidaphne, from its vicinity to the little village of Daphne,
where stood a temple to that divinity. It was built (although about this
matter there is some dispute) by Seleucus Nicanor, the first king of the
country after Alexander the Great, in memory of his father Antiochus,
and became immediately the residence of the Syrian monarchy. In the
flourishing times of the Roman Empire, it was the ordinary station of
the prefect of the eastern provinces; and many of the emperors of the
queen city (among whom may be mentioned, especially, Verus and Valens)
spent here the greater part of their time. But I perceive we have
arrived at the city itself. Let us ascend this battlement, and throw our
eyes upon the town and neighboring country.
“What broad and rapid river is that which forces its way, with
innumerable falls, through the mountainous wilderness, and finally
through the wilderness of buildings?”
That is the Orontes, and it is the only water in sight, with the
exception of the Mediterranean, which stretches, like a broad mirror,
about twelve miles off to the southward. Every one has seen the
Mediterranean; but let me tell you, there are few who have had a peep at
Antioch. By few, I mean, few who, like you and me, have had, at the same
time, the advantages of a modern education. Therefore cease to regard
that sea, and give your whole attention to the mass of houses that lie
beneath us. You will remember that it is now the year of the world three
thousand eight hundred and thirty. Were it later--for example, were
it the year of our Lord eighteen hundred and forty-five, we should be
deprived of this extraordinary spectacle. In the nineteenth century
Antioch is--that is to say, Antioch will be--in a lamentable state
of decay. It will have been, by that time, totally destroyed, at three
different periods, by three successive earthquakes. Indeed, to say the
truth, what little of its former self may then remain, will be found in
so desolate and ruinous a state that the patriarch shall have removed
his residence to Damascus. This is well. I see you profit by my advice,
and are making the most of your time in inspecting the premises--in
-satisfying your eyes
With the memorials and the things of fame
That most renown this city.--
I beg pardon; I had forgotten that Shakespeare will not flourish for
seventeen hundred and fifty years to come. But does not the appearance
of Epidaphne justify me in calling it grotesque?
“It is well fortified; and in this respect is as much indebted to nature
as to art.”
Very true.
“There are a prodigious number of stately palaces.”
There are.
“And the numerous temples, sumptuous and magnificent, may bear
comparison with the most lauded of antiquity.”
All this I must acknowledge. Still there is an infinity of mud huts, and
abominable hovels. We cannot help perceiving abundance of filth in
every kennel, and, were it not for the over-powering fumes of idolatrous
incense, I have no doubt we should find a most intolerable stench.
Did you ever behold streets so insufferably narrow, or houses so
miraculously tall? What gloom their shadows cast upon the ground! It
is well the swinging lamps in those endless colonnades are kept burning
throughout the day; we should otherwise have the darkness of Egypt in
the time of her desolation.
“It is certainly a strange place! What is the meaning of yonder singular
building? See! it towers above all others, and lies to the eastward of
what I take to be the royal palace.”
That is the new Temple of the Sun, who is adored in Syria under the
title of Elah Gabalah. Hereafter a very notorious Roman Emperor
will institute this worship in Rome, and thence derive a cognomen,
Heliogabalus. I dare say you would like to take a peep at the divinity
of the temple. You need not look up at the heavens; his Sunship is not
there--at least not the Sunship adored by the Syrians. That deity will
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496
497
498
499
500