rking from this point of view I set myself to remember what had been
written on the parchment beside the column of figures. Perhaps the key
had been there also; I had simply failed to observe it. At the bottom of
the message had appeared the words "At F. T." And at first this seemed
to offer the most interesting possibilities.

Certainly the word and letters had some meaning. In the first place
this, and the sentence above the script, indicated that the writer did
his thinking in English--not in Spanish or Portuguese or any other
language. But "F. T." did not convey any meaning to my mind. I simply
couldn't catch it.

I tried to make the letters "F" and "T" a starting point in the alphabet
for rearranging the letters in the column of words, on the same theory
that I had worked at first, but nothing came of it. And at that point my
hopes and confidence, falling steadily for the past hour, was at its
lowest ebb. I didn't see but that I would have to give up the venture
after all.

My mind slipped easily to the message in English above the
column--"Sworn by the Book," or something after that nature. Taking
these words simply as they seemed, an oath on the part of the writer
that the ensuing message was true, I hadn't taken the trouble to copy
them from the original parchment. Fortunately I remembered them,
approximately at least. And I felt a little quickening of hope as I
contemplated them.

The more I looked at them the more they seemed to be "dragged in by the
heels." I didn't think that one with knowledge of hidden treasure,
conveying its hiding place to some one else, would have taken the
trouble to declare the truth of his statement by oath. Nor was such
a pious beginning, on the part of that iniquitous murderer and
cut-throat, Jason, quite in character. He would have been more likely to
have begun with a sentence of piratical profanity. He had some reason
for bringing in the "Book"--and when I knew what it was, I believed I
would know the key to the cryptogram.

The "Book" was the Bible of course--a name still in wide use. And the
whole volume of my blood seemed to spurt through the veins when I
remembered what an important place the Bible had taken in the events of
the past few days!

Nealman had had a Bible, wide open, in his room. Edith had been seen to
carry it to him through the corridor--and this business with it had been
of such a character that he had ordered Edith's silence in regard to the
errand.