"Very probably," I replied, not to contradict him.
"Let us see into the matter," continued my uncle; "here you see we have a series of one hundred and thirty-two letters, apparently thrown pell-mell upon paper, without method or organization. There are words which are composed wholly of consonants, such as m.rnlls, others which are nearly all vowels, the fifth, for instance, which is unteief, and one of the last oseibo. This appears an extraordinary combination. Probably we shall find that the phrase is arranged according to some mathematical plan. No doubt a certain sentence has been written out and then jumbled up—some plan to which some figure is the clue. Now, Harry, to show your English wit—what is that figure?"
I could give him no hint. My thoughts were indeed far away. While he was speaking I had caught sight of a portrait of my cousin Gretchen, and was wondering when she would return. We were affianced, and loved one another very sincerely. But my uncle, who never thought of such sublunary matters, knew nothing of this. Without noticing my abstraction, the Professor began reading the puzzling cryptograph all sorts of ways, according to some theory of his own. Presently, rousing my wandering attention, he dictated one precious attempt to me.
I mildly handed it over to him. It read as follows:—
messunkaSenrA.icefdoK.segnittamurtn
ecertserrette,rotaivsadua,ednecsedsadne
lacartniiiluJsiratracSarbmutabiledmek
meretarcsilucoIsleffenSnI
I could scarcely keep from laughing while my uncle, on the contrary, got into a towering passion, struck the table with his fist, darted out of the room, out of the house and then taking to his heels was presently lost to sight.
CHAPTER III
AN ASTOUNDING DISCOVERY
"WHAT is the matter?" cried the cook, entering the room; "when will master have his dinner?"
"Never."
"And, his supper?"
"I don't know. He says he will eat no more, neither shall I. My uncle has determined to fast and make me fast until he reads this abominable inscription," I replied.
"You will be starved to death," she said.
I was very much of the same opinion, but not liking to say so, sent her away, and began some of my usual work of classification. But busy as I made myself, nothing could keep me from thinking alternately of the stupid manuscript and of the pretty Gretchen.
Several times I was tempted to go out, but my uncle would have been angry at my absence. At the end of an hour, my allotted task was done. How to pass the time? I began by lighting my pipe. Like all other students, I delighted in tobacco; and, seating myself in the great armchair, I began to meditate.
Where was my uncle? I could easily imagine him tearing along some solitary road, gesticulating, talking to himself, cutting the air with his cane, and still thinking of the absurd bit of hieroglyphics. Would he hit upon some clue? Would he come home in better humor? While these thoughts were passing through my brain, I mechanically took up the execrable puzzle and tried every imaginable way of grouping the letters. I put them together by twos, by threes, fours, and fives—in vain. Nothing intelligible came out, except that the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth made ice in English; the eighty-fourth, eighty-fifth and eighty-sixth, the word sir; then at last I seemed to find the Latin words rota, mutabile, ira, nee, atra.
"Ha! there seems to be some truth in my uncle's notion," thought I.
Then again I seemed to find the word luco, which means sacred grove. Then in the third line I appeared to make out labiled, a perfect Hebrew word, and at last the syllables mere, art, mer, which were French. It was enough to drive one mad. Four different idioms in this absurd phrase. What connection could there be between ice, sir, anger, cruel, sacred grove, changing, mother, art and sea? The first and the last might, in a sentence connected with Iceland, mean sea of ice. But what of the rest of this monstrous cryptograph?
I was, in fact, fighting against an insurmountable difficulty; my brain was almost on fire; my eyes were strained with staring at the parchment; the whole absurd collection of letters appeared to dance before my vision in a number of black little groups. My mind was possessed with temporary hallucination—I was stifling. I wanted air. Mechanically I fanned myself with the document, of which I saw first the back and then the front.
Imagine my surprise, when glancing at the back of the wearisome puzzle, the ink having gone through, I clearly made out Latin words, and among others craterem and terrestre.
I had discovered the secret! It came upon me like a flash of lightning. I had got the clue. All you had to do to understand the document was to read it backwards. All the ingenious ideas of the Professor were realized; he had dictated it rightly to me; by a mere accident I had discovered what he so much desired.
My delight, my emotion may be imagined. My eyes were dazzled and I trembled so that at first I could make nothing of it. One look, however, would tell me all I wished to know.
"Let me read," I said to myself, after drawing a long breath. I spread it before me on the table, I passed my finger over each letter, I spelt it through; in my excitement I read it out.
What horror and stupefaction took possession of my soul. I was like a man who had received a knock-down blow. Was it possible that I really read the terrible secret, and it had really been accomplished! A man had dared to do—what?
No living being should ever know "Never!" cried I, jumping up; "Never shall my uncle be made aware of the dread secret. He would be quite capable of undertaking the terrible journey. Nothing would check him, nothing stop him. Worse, he would compel me to accompany him, and we should be lost forever. No; such folly and madness cannot be allowed."
I was almost beside myself with rage and fury. "My worthy uncle is already nearly mad," I cried aloud. "This would finish him. By some accident
