The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1869-08-11

toWaru Ine STAIR Ihe BaS-llSnt ShOne
upon folded paper lying on the second
step, soiled and torn. He stopped and
picked it up. He glanced inside; it was
meaning. A horrible suspicion flashed
upon him-might rot what he had over
heard be true? He opened the door and
went out. He stopped Mt the corner,
under the lamp, opened the paper. and
held it to the light. It was sheet of
common note paper, folded in three. A
wet boot-heel had apparently trodden
upon one side rs it lay in the fold, and
ground off part of the writing just be-
low the first four words. A pulpy shred
connected the parts, and showed what
space was gone This was what remained: /:
(1) o e ROOT FGCT OCT 6
TT-HTU ATsUG. (a) FL sR BsYv
KYEVH. (4) NET YB EREH TEG.
AJDXN XARENE.
The rain dripped down upon the pa
per; he sheltered it with his hat, and
stood, with head bare, in the beating
rain. He felt in his heart that that
fourth word could be but one. He found
the key in minutes time; simple
school-boy trick. He felt that that word
must be Mary. He tried it through tho
sentence, counting two letters back:
o-ma,c-a-t-r-&-y.. My poor, dear Mary"
The rain dripped from his hair; he
shivered-was it with cold? He felt sick
and faint; he thought he should fall. He
saw the lights CO tho Merriman House
over the way. Ho staggered across,
through mud and water half knee deep,
needing neither gutter nor pool; went in
and up to the bar
Brandy" he said. He lifted the bot
tie; but his hand shook too much.
''Pour it." His voice sounded hoarse
and strange. The barman took up the
bottle and half filled the glass. Glen
ming steadied himself by the bar. He
spilled little rs he lifted the glass. He
set it down empty. "More." he said.
He drank it of, and went out. The
church clock was striking s. He ran
on down to the station; he was half an
hour late. He sat down at his desk.
There was nothing going through the
wires from L.; only now and then some
message about the trains on the railway
line. The cipher changed after that first
line. The burning spirit set him all
leaden weight. He studied those next
| legible words with mad anxiety. They
were plainly the end of sentence, the
rest of which was gone. He tried the
words this way and that-counted for
ward, backward. one letter, two letters,
three, four. five. He felt sure it was
some simple trick of spelling, but he
could make no sense of them for O long
| time. Some ono came stamping in now
and then out of the rain; but he paid no
heed, worked away ut that terrible puz-
zle that seemed so like child's play, and
was, in fact, such deadly, earnest work.
1T may we'll be doubted" says Poe,
"whether human ingenuity can construct
an enigma of this kind which human in
genuity, if properly applied. may not
also resolve" In certain sense, this is,
no doubt, true. In the hiding of thought,
rs of treasure. it is always possible that q
second mind may invent or happen upon
the same method and place of conceal
ment, and so discover the buried store.
But think | may safely engage to con-
ceal thought under a riddle of this sort
which shall be as long in the finding as
the buried gold and jewels of the pirate
captain, Kidd. Here is this simple
cipher. which SO cruelty perplexed poor
Glenning that April evening. The head
that constructed it was none of the Gle
verest, and, by consequence, the riddle
was OF the rudest and simplest. In these
next four words the writer had hit, by
good chance, upon an expedient SO sim
pie, that you may easily get at the hid
den meaning, il you have quick mother
wit and good luck. Yet challenge any
reader 70 go to work Systematically, and
unravel the enigma by any more logical
process than that of happy guessing.
Take the words before reading further:
DQPI TT-HTU ATSUG.
Glenning wearied and fretted himself.
to no purpose, with trial on trial. Then
he tried the system commonly used with
these riddles. depending upon the known
excess in the number of certain letters
e, a, o, i, d, and so on, in their order. It
would not work. He was out again. The
trouble with that system, and similar
ones, is, that they provide only for cases
in which each character of the cipher re-
fers uniformly to one certain thing in the
underlying expression; and even here
the system may be easily stultifed by
the omission of the articles, and the use
of a little care in the selection of the
words employed.