ually recognized
themselves as two conspirators, and had thus become already
indispensable to one another.

They waited patiently, however, and at length their patient waiting
was rewarded. One day Gualtier came and found that Zillah was unwell,
and confined to her room. It was the slightest thing in the world,
but the General was anxious and fidgety, and was staying in the room
with her trying to amuse her. This Miss Krieff told him with her
usual bitterness.

"And now," said she, "we will have an hour. I want to know what you
have done."

"Done! Nothing."

"Nothing?"

"No, nothing. My genius does not lie in that direction. You might as
well have expected me to decipher a Ninevite inscription. I can do
nothing."

"Have you tried?"

"Tried! I assure you that for the last month the only thing that I
have thought of has been this. Many reasons have urged me to decipher
it, but the chief motive was the hope of bringing to you a complete
explanation."

"Have you not made out at least a part of it?"

"Not a part--not a single word--if there are words in it--which I
very much doubt."

"Why should you doubt it?"

"It seems to me that it must consist of hieroglyphics. You yourself
say that you have only made out a part of it, and that you doubt
whether it is a valid interpretation. After all, then, your
interpretation is only partial--only a conjecture. Now I have not
begun to make even a conjecture. For see--what is this?" and Gualtier
drew the well-thumbed paper from his pocket. "I have counted up all
the different characters here, and find that they are forty in
number. They are composed chiefly of astronomical signs; but sixteen
of them are the ordinary punctuation marks, such as one sees every
day. If it were merely a secret alphabet, there would be twenty-six
signs only, not forty. What can one do with forty signs?

"I have examined different grammars of foreign languages to see if
any of them had forty letters, but among the few books at my command
I can find none; and even if it were so, what then? What would be the
use of trying to decipher an inscription in Arabic? I thought at one
time that perhaps the writer might have adopted the short-hand
alphabet, but changed the signs. Yet even when I go from this
principle I can do nothing."

"Then you give it up altogether?"

"Yes, altogether and utterly, so far as I am concerned; but I still
am anxious to know what you have deciphered, and how you have