e it
presented was as undernoted, the characters being some eighteen to
twenty inches in length, and cut deeply into the soft sandstone with
some apparently blunt instrument.

"Now," said Kenyon, calling his companion's attention to this, "what the
deuce does yonder curious hieroglyphic signify? I've no knowledge of
Arabic, but I think I'm right in saying that those signs belong to the
calligraphy of no known language. To my professional eye they rather
resemble a rough gibbet with three bodies hanging from it."

It so happened that, as soon as daylight had satisfied the pair that
their foes were not hanging about in the immediate vicinity, Leigh had
quietly laid himself down to enjoy a comfortable smoke, and was at the
moment in question lying on the broad of his back, gazing at the wide
vista of country below him, and puffing away in perfect tranquillity,
with the apex of his skull pointing towards the chasm. To save himself
the trouble of rising, he lazily elevated his chin, and performed the
interesting occupation of looking, so to speak, over the top of his own
head, and then electrified Kenyon by bounding to his feet with a wild
hurrah, and shaking hands with him enthusiastically. "Found!" he fairly
yelled. "Found, as sure as there is a heaven above us!"

"Why, confound it, old fellow," said Kenyon, ruefully nursing his
bruised fingers, "whatever is the matter with you?"

"Matter!" was the reply. "Why, your hieroglyphic is as good as my
cousin looking me in the face from yonder splendid rock. The solution
of your mystery is a simple matter to me--a man, hanging head-downwards
from yonder cliff, laboriously graved those curious characters, upside
down, as we see them, upon the face of the rock, and the hand that wrote
them was the hand of Grenville."

"And the meaning?" queried the attentive Kenyon, without showing any of
his customary signs of incredulity or dissent.

"The hieroglyphic which is such a stumbling-block to you, Kenyon,
simplified, stands thus:--

"I. _v_. LIII,

"and the meaning is merely `Richard Grenville.' It was a secret sign
between my cousin and myself when we were mere schoolboys, and the
simile was drawn from the memorable sea-fight in the reign of good Queen
Bess, when Sir Richard Grenvil--God rest him for a gallant
gentleman!--`with one small ship and his English few,' fought for a day
and a night with fifty-three Spanish galleons. As a boy, my cousin--
though no descend