room he bolted the door, and drew the curtains across the
windows, although he knew that it was impossible for anyone to spy on
him from without. Then he opened his desk, spread out the MS. before
him, and took up the volume. A calf-bound volume, with red edges, and
numbering five hundred pages. It was in English, and the title-page
stated it to be "_The Confessions of Parthenio the Mystic: A Romance_.
Translated from the Latin. With Annotations, and a Key to Sundrie Dark
Meanings. Imprinted at Amsterdam in the Year of Grace 1698." It was in
excellent condition.

Captain Ducie's eagerness to test his prize would not allow of more than
a very cursory inspection of the general contents of the volume. So far
as he could make out, it seemed to be a political satire veiled under
the transparent garb of an Eastern story. Parthenio was represented as a
holy man--a Spiritualist or Mystic--who had lived for many years in a
cave in one of the Arabian deserts. Commanded at length by what he calls
the "inner voice," he sets out on his travels to visit sundry courts and
kingdoms of the East. He returns after five years, and writes, for the
benefit of his disciples, an account of the chief things he has seen and
learned while on his travels. The courts of England, France and Spain,
under fictitious names, are the chief marks for his ponderous satire,
and some of the greatest men in the three kingdoms are lashed with his
most scurrilous abuse. Under any circumstances the book was not one that
Captain Ducie would have cared to wade through, and in the present case,
after dipping into a page here and there, and finding that it contained
nothing likely to interest him, he proceeded at once to the more serious
business of the evening.

The clocks of Bon Repos were striking midnight as Captain Ducie
proceeded to test the value of the first group of figures on the MS.,
according to the formula laid down for him by his friend Bexell.

The first group of figures was 253.12/4. Turning to page two hundred and
fifty-three of the Confessions, and counting from the top of that page,
he found that the fourth word of the twelfth line gave him _you_. The
second clump of figures was 59.25/1. The first word of the twenty-fifth
line of page fifty-nine gave him _will_. The third clump of figures gave
him _have_, and the fourth _gathered_. These four words, ranged in
order, read: _You will have gathered_. Such a sequence of words could
not arise from me