spirit to seek further. And it would be a real blow to
all my hopes.

I opened the Bible. The fourth book proved to be "Numbers." I turned to
the seventeenth chapter, the second verse. And there I read as follows:

Speak unto the children of Israel and take one of them a
_rod_ according to the house of their fathers.

The fifteenth word was _rod_--used as a staff in this case but
undoubtedly used as a term of measurement in the script.

From then on my fingers flew through the pages of the Book. "Aned," the
very first word in the column, represented--finding the alphabetical
position of each letter--the numbers 1-14-5-4. It was a simple matter to
look up the first book of the Bible, Genesis, the fourteenth chapter,
the fifth verse, and the fourth word. The verse in this case began:

"And in the _fourteenth_ year came Chedorlaomer, and the
kings that were with him."

The fourth word of the verse was _fourteenth_--and the first word of the
finished script.

It was easy to find the other words. I worked them all out in fifteen
minutes. "Aqcd," the third in the column, proved to be the first,
seventeenth, third, and fourth letters of the alphabet, respectively,
and 1-17-3-4 meant first book, seventeenth chapter, third verse, fourth
word, as plain as could be. The word proved to be "on." Swiftly I went
down the list. And at last I had the whole column translated:

fourteen
rod
on
wall
three
rod
straight
right
fastened
white
rock

Writing it out, I had:

Fourteen rod on wall three rod straight right fastened white
rock.

In clearer language, it meant simply and unmistakably, that to find the
missing object--unquestionably Jason's treasure--go fourteen rods out on
the natural rock wall, turn straight right into the lagoon for three
rods, and there I would find it--fastened to a white rock.

The thing was done. I came to myself to find my fingers toying with the
pencil, and my thoughts soaring far away. In spite of the grim record of
death already made, the deadly precedent that had been set, in spite of
all the dictates of ordinary intelligence, I knew what my future course
would be. The lure of gold had hold of me. As soon as the opportunity
offered, I was going to follow the thing through to its end, and see
with my own eyes that which lay hidden in the depths of the lagoon.

CHAPTER XXII

Just before the d