re I had the answer, and knew that it
must be the number of the word chosen in each text to make a secret
meaning. I was in as great a fever and excitement now as when I found the
locket in the Mohune vault, and could scarce count with trembling fingers
as far as twenty-one, in the first verse, for hurry and amaze. It was
'fourscore' that the number fell on in the first text, 'feet' in the
second, 'deep' in the third, 'well' in the fourth, 'north' in the fifth.

Fourscore--feet--deep--well--north.

There was the cipher read, and what an easy trick! and yet I had not
lighted on it all this while, nor ever should have, but for Sexton Ratsey
and his burial verse. It was a cunning plan of Blackbeard; but other folk
were quite as cunning as he, and here was all his treasure at our feet. I
chuckled over that to myself, rubbing my hands, and read it through
again:

Fourscore--feet--deep--well--north.

'Twas all so simple, and the word in the fourth verse 'well' and not
'vale' or 'pool' as I had stuck at so often in trying to unriddle it. How
was it I had not guessed as much before? and here was something to tell
Elzevir when he came back, that the clue was found to the cipher, and the
secret out. I would not reveal it all at once, but tease him by making
him guess, and at last tell him everything, and we would set to work at
once to make ourselves rich men. And then I thought once more of Grace,
and how the laugh would be on my side now, for all Master Ratsey's banter
about her being rich and me being poor!

Fourscore--feet-deep--well--north.

I read it again, and somehow it was this time a little less dear, and I
fell to thinking what it was exactly that I should tell Elzevir, and how
we were to get to work to find the treasure. 'Twas hid in a _well_--that
was plain enough, but in what well?--and what did 'north' mean? Was it
the _north well,_ or to _north of the well_--or, was it fourscore feet
_north_ of the _deep well_? I stared at the verses as if the ink would
change colour and show some other sense, and then a veil seemed drawn
across the writing, and the meaning to slip away, and be as far as ever
from my grasp. _Fourscore--feet--deep--well--north_: and by degrees
exulting gladness gave way to bewilderment and disquiet of spirit, and
in the gusts of wind I heard Blackbeard himself laughing and mocking me
for thinking I had found his treasure. Still I read and re-read it,
juggling with the words and turning them a