Poe, Edgar Allen - The Complete Works of Edgar Allen Poe

by Volume 01-05 (lit)

  figure of the scarabµus, and that this skull, not only in outline,

  but in size, should so closely resemble my drawing. I say

  the singularity of this coincidence absolutely stupified me for a

  time. This is the usual effect of such coincidences. The mind

  struggles to establish a connexion - a sequence of cause and effect -

  and, being unable to do so, suffers a species of temporary paralysis.

  But, when I recovered from this stupor, there dawned upon me

  gradually a conviction which startled me even far more than the

  coincidence. I began distinctly, positively, to remember that there

  had been no drawing upon the parchment when I made my sketch of the

  scarabµus. I became perfectly certain of this; for I recollected

  turning up first one side and then the other, in search of the

  cleanest spot. Had the skull been then there, of course I could not

  have failed to notice it. Here was indeed a mystery which I felt it

  impossible to explain; but, even at that early moment, there seemed

  to glimmer, faintly, within the most remote and secret chambers of my

  intellect, a glow-worm-like conception of that truth which last

  night's adventure brought to so magnificent a demonstration. I arose

  at once, and putting the parchment securely away, dismissed all

  farther reflection until I should be alone.

  "When you had gone, and when Jupiter was fast asleep, I betook

  myself to a more methodical investigation of the affair. In the first

  place I considered the manner in which the parchment had come into my

  possession. The spot where we discovered the scarabaeus was on the

  coast of the main land, about a mile eastward of the island, and but

  a short distance above high water mark. Upon my taking hold of it, it

  gave me a sharp bite, which caused me to let it drop. Jupiter, with

  his accustomed caution, before seizing the insect, which had flown

  towards him, looked about him for a leaf, or something of that

  nature, by which to take hold of it. It was at this moment that his

  eyes, and mine also, fell upon the scrap of parchment, which I then

  supposed to be paper. It was lying half buried in the sand, a corner

  sticking up. Near the spot where we found it, I observed the remnants

  of the hull of what appeared to have been a ship's long boat. The

  wreck seemed to have been there for a very great while; for the

  resemblance to boat timbers could scarcely be traced.

  "Well, Jupiter picked up the parchment, wrapped the beetle in it,

  and gave it to me. Soon afterwards we turned to go home, and on the

  way met Lieutenant G-. I showed him the insect, and he begged me to

  let him take it to the fort. Upon my consenting, he thrust it

  forthwith into his waistcoat pocket, without the parchment in which

  it had been wrapped, and which I had continued to hold in my hand

  during his inspection. Perhaps he dreaded my changing my mind, and

  thought it best to make sure of the prize at once - you know how

  enthusiastic he is on all subjects connected with Natural History. At

  the same time, without being conscious of it, I must have deposited

  the parchment in my own pocket.

  "You remember that when I went to the table, for the purpose of

  making a sketch of the beetle, I found no paper where it was usually

  kept. I looked in the drawer, and found none there. I searched my

  pockets, hoping to find an old letter, when my hand fell upon the

  parchment. I thus detail the precise mode in which it came into my

  possession; for the circumstances impressed me with peculiar force.

  "No doubt you will think me fanciful - but I had already

  established a kind of connexion. I had put together two links of a

  great chain. There was a boat lying upon a sea-coast, and not far

  from the boat was a parchment - not a paper - with a skull depicted

  upon it. You will, of course, ask 'where is the connexion?' I reply

  that the skull, or death's-head, is the well-known emblem of the

  pirate. The flag of the death's head is hoisted in all engagements.

  "I have said that the scrap was parchment, and not paper.

  Parchment is durable - almost imperishable. Matters of little moment

  are rarely consigned to parchment; since, for the mere ordinary

  purposes of drawing or writing, it is not nearly so well adapted as

  paper. This reflection suggested some meaning - some relevancy - in

  the death's-head. I did not fail to observe, also, the form of the

  parchment. Although one of its corners had been, by some accident,

  destroyed, it could be seen that the original form was oblong. It was

  just such a slip, indeed, as might have been chosen for a memorandum

  - for a record of something to be long remembered and carefully

  preserved."

  "But," I interposed, "you say that the skull was not upon the

  parchment when you made the drawing of the beetle. How then do you

  trace any connexion between the boat and the skull - since this

  latter, according to your own admission, must have been designed (God

  only knows how or by whom) at some period subsequent to your

  sketching the scarabµus?"

  "Ah, hereupon turns the whole mystery; although the secret, at

  this point, I had comparatively little difficulty in solving. My

  steps were sure, and could afford but a single result. I reasoned,

  for example, thus: When I drew the scarabµus, there was no skull

  apparent upon the parchment. When I had completed the drawing I gave

  it to you, and observed you narrowly until you returned it. You,

  therefore, did not design the skull, and no one else was present to

  do it. Then it was not done by human agency. And nevertheless it was

  done. "At this stage of my reflections I endeavored to remember, and

  did remember, with entire distinctness, every incident which occurred

  about the period in question. The weather was chilly (oh rare and

  happy accident!), and a fire was blazing upon the hearth. I was

  heated with exercise and sat near the table. You, however, had drawn

  a chair close to the chimney. Just as I placed the parchment in your

  hand, and as you were in the act of in. inspecting it, Wolf, the

  Newfoundland, entered, and leaped upon your shoulders. With your left

  hand you caressed him and kept him off, while your right, holding the

  parchment, was permitted to fall listlessly between your knees, and

  in close proximity to the fire. At one moment I thought the blaze had

  caught it, and was about to caution you, but, before I could speak,

  you had withdrawn it, and were engaged in its examination. When I

  considered all these particulars, I doubted not for a moment that

  heat had been the agent in bringing to light, upon the parchment, the

  skull which I saw designed upon it. You are well aware that chemical

  preparations exist, and have existed time out of mind, by means of

  which it is possible to write upon either paper or vellum, so that

  the characters shall become visible only when subjected to the action

  of fire. Zaffre, digested in aqua regia, and diluted with four times

  its weight of water, is sometimes employed; a green tint results. The

  regulus of cobalt, dissolved in spirit of nitre, gi
ves a red. These

  colors disappear at longer or shorter intervals after the material

  written upon cools, but again become apparent upon the

  re-application of heat.

  "I now scrutinized the death's-head with care. Its outer edges -

  the edges of the drawing nearest the edge of the vellum - were far

  more distinct than the others. It was clear that the action of the

  caloric had been imperfect or unequal. I immediately kindled a fire,

  and subjected every portion of the parchment to a glowing heat. At

  first, the only effect was the strengthening of the faint lines in

  the skull; but, upon persevering in the experiment, there became

  visible, at the corner of the slip, diagonally opposite to the spot

  in which the death's-head was delineated, the figure of what I at

  first supposed to be a goat. A closer scrutiny, however, satisfied me

  that it was intended for a kid."

  "Ha! ha!" said I, "to be sure I have no right to laugh at you - a

  million and a half of money is too serious a matter for mirth - but

  you are not about to establish a third link in your chain - you will

  not find any especial connexion between your pirates and a goat -

  pirates, you know, have nothing to do with goats; they appertain to

  the farming interest."

  "But I have just said that the figure was not that of a goat."

  "Well, a kid then - pretty much the same thing."

  "Pretty much, but not altogether," said Legrand. "You may have

  heard of one Captain Kidd. I at once looked upon the figure of the

  animal as a kind of punning or hieroglyphical signature. I say

  signature; because its position upon the vellum suggested this idea.

  The death's-head at the corner diagonally opposite, had, in the same

  manner, the air of a stamp, or seal. But I was sorely put out by the

  absence of all else - of the body to my imagined instrument - of the

  text for my context."

  "I presume you expected to find a letter between the stamp and

  the signature."

  "Something of that kind. The fact is, I felt irresistibly

  impressed with a presentiment of some vast good fortune impending. I

  can scarcely say why. Perhaps, after all, it was rather a desire than

  an actual belief; - but do you know that Jupiter's silly words, about

  the bug being of solid gold, had a remarkable effect upon my fancy?

  And then the series of accidents and coincidences - these were so

  very extraordinary. Do you observe how mere an accident it was that

  these events should have occurred upon the sole day of all the year

  in which it has been, or may be, sufficiently cool for fire, and that

  without the fire, or without the intervention of the dog at the

  precise moment in which he appeared, I should never have become aware

  of the death's-head, and so never the possessor of the treasure?"

  "But proceed - I am all impatience."

  "Well; you have heard, of course, the many stories current - the

  thousand vague rumors afloat about money buried, somewhere upon the

  Atlantic coast, by Kidd and his associates. These rumors must have

  had some foundation in fact. And that the rumors have existed so long

  and so continuous, could have resulted, it appeared to me, only from

  the circumstance of the buried treasure still remaining entombed. Had

  Kidd concealed his plunder for a time, and afterwards reclaimed it,

  the rumors would scarcely have reached us in their present unvarying

  form. You will observe that the stories told are all about

  money-seekers, not about money-finders. Had the pirate recovered his

  money, there the affair would have dropped. It seemed to me that some

  accident - say the loss of a memorandum indicating its locality - had

  deprived him of the means of recovering it, and that this accident

  had become known to his followers, who otherwise might never have

  heard that treasure had been concealed at all, and who, busying

  themselves in vain, because unguided attempts, to regain it, had

  given first birth, and then universal currency, to the reports which

  are now so common. Have you ever heard of any important treasure

  being unearthed along the coast?"

  "Never."

  "But that Kidd's accumulations were immense, is well known. I

  took it for granted, therefore, that the earth still held them; and

  you will scarcely be surprised when I tell you that I felt a hope,

  nearly amounting to certainty, that the parchment so strangely found,

  involved a lost record of the place of deposit."

  "But how did you proceed?"

  "I held the vellum again to the fire, after increasing the heat;

  but nothing appeared. I now thought it possible that the coating of

  dirt might have something to do with the failure; so I carefully

  rinsed the parchment by pouring warm water over it, and,

  having done this, I placed it in a tin pan, with the skull downwards,

  and put the pan upon a furnace of lighted charcoal. In a few minutes,

  the pan having become thoroughly heated, I removed the slip, and, to

  my inexpressible joy, found it spotted, in several places, with what

  appeared to be figures arranged in lines. Again I placed it in the

  pan, and suffered it to remain another minute. Upon taking it off,

  the whole was just as you see it now." Here Legrand, having re-heated

  the parchment, submitted it to my inspection. The following

  characters were rudely traced, in a red tint, between the

  death's-head and the goat:

  "53ççå305))6*;4826)4ç)4ç;806*;48ç8╢60))85;1-(;:*8-83(88)5*ç

  ;46(;88*96*?;8)*ç(;485);5*å2:*ç(;4956*2(5*- 4)8╢8*;40692

  85);)6å8)4;1(ç9;48081;8:8ç1;48å85;4)485å528806*81(ç9;48;

  (88;4(ç?34;48)4ç;161;:188;ç?;"

  "But," said I, returning him the slip, "I am as much in the dark

  as ever. Were all the jewels of Golconda awaiting me upon my solution

  of this enigma, I am quite sure that I should be unable to earn

  them."

  "And yet," said Legrand, "the solution is by no means so

  difficult as you might be lead to imagine from the first hasty

  inspection of the characters. These characters, as any one might

  readily guess, form a cipher - that is to say, they convey a meaning;

  but then, from what is known of Kidd, I could not suppose him capable

  of constructing any of the more abstruse cryptographs. I made up my

  mind, at once, that this was of a simple species - such, however, as

  would appear, to the crude intellect of the sailor, absolutely

  insoluble without the key."

  "And you really solved it?"

  "Readily; I have solved others of an abstruseness ten thousand

  times greater. Circumstances, and a certain bias of mind, have led me

  to take interest in such riddles, and it may well be doubted whether

  human ingenuity can construct an enigma of the kind which human

  ingenuity may not, by proper application, resolve. In fact, having

  once established connected and legible characters, I scarcely gave a

  thought to the mere difficulty of developing their import.

  "In the present case - indeed in all cases of secret writing -

  the first question regards the language of the cipher; for the

  principles of soluti
on, so far, especially, as the more simple

  ciphers are concerned, depend upon, and are varied by, the genius of

  the particular idiom. In general, there is no alternative but

  experiment (directed by probabilities) of every tongue known to him

  who attempts the solution, until the true one be attained. But, with

  the cipher now before us, all difficulty was removed by the

  signature. The pun upon the word 'Kidd' is appreciable in no other

  language than the English. But for this consideration I should have

  begun my attempts with the Spanish and French, as the tongues in

  which a secret of this kind would most naturally have been written by

  a pirate of the Spanish main. As it was, I assumed the cryptograph to

  be English.

  "You observe there are no divisions between the words. Had there

  been divisions, the task would have been comparatively easy. In such

  case I should have commenced with a collation and analysis of the

  shorter words, and, had a word of a single letter occurred, as is

  most likely, (a or I, for example,) I should have considered the

  solution as assured. But, there being no division, my first step was

  to ascertain the predominant letters, as well as the least frequent.

  Counting all, I constructed a table, thus:

  Of the character 8 there are 33.

  ; " 26.

  4 " 19.

  ç ) " 16.

  * " 13.

  5 " 12.

  6 " 11.

  å 1 " 8.

  0 " 6.

  9 2 " 5.

  : 3 " 4.

  ? " 3.

  ╢ " 2.

  -. " 1.

  "Now, in English, the letter which most frequently occurs is e.

  Afterwards, succession runs thus: _a o i d h n r s t u y c f g l m w

  b k p q x z_. _E_ predominates so remarkably that an individual

  sentence of any length is rarely seen, in which it is not the