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"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?"
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