The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1910-04-10

| sprung upon the visitor to welcome him,
he had held one hand with the piece of
parchment in it so that it came close to
the fire. He had it-sympathetic ink,
After same trials Legrand succeeded in
bringing out by heating the parchment
some lines of writing, or rather of
cryptograph composed of punctuation
marks and figures. Near the deaths head
also appeared the rude figure of young
goat or kid. After much thought a light
broke in upon him. Kid! why, Captain
Kid, of counsel 1t was a pictorial pun
| on the pirates namel Had he indeed,
discovered a clue to those treasures
which, legend said the celebrated buc-
cancer had once buried along the coast?
He now set to work to decipher the
| cryptogram. 1t was a simple one, such
as a sailor might make, and Legrand.
| who had made a study of cryptography
for his own amusement, easily got at Its
meaning. 1t ran thus: "A good glass in
the Bishops hostel is the devils seat
forty-one degrees and thirteen minutes
northeast and by nortll-main branch
| seventh limb, east side-shoot from the
| left eye of the deaths head-a bee line
from the tree through the shot fifty feet
out" Legrand now became perfectly OBJ
sessed with the idea that he might re-
cover the treasure of the pirate and with
| it mend his own shattered fortunes
Then had begun his lonely wandering and
his other strange behavior which caused
| so much anxiety to his friend and Jupiter
| First he began to inquire If the
| ever had been known in that region
such a place as "Bsh ops Hotel'-for,
of course, he dropped the antfquated
word hostel" Nobody knew of any
such tavern having ever existed
Then it occurred to him that he had
heard of an old family once living in
the neighborhood, but now extinct, by
the name of Bessop. Could it be Bes-
sop's Hostel? At last an aged woman
told him that she knew where "Bes-
sop's Castle" vast was an assem-
blage of cliffs and rocks far in the for
est, remarkable for it's insulated and
castle-like appearance. She guided him
to it, and, clambering to it's isolated
summit, he looked about undecided
what to do next. Then he saw a little
ledge perhaps a yard below where he'll
stood. The ledge was not more than
a foot wide, while niche in the cliff
just above gave it the appearance of "a
chair. THE Devils Seat" he said, and.
dismissing the old woman with a gra-
tuity, he clambered down to the ledge
Upon reaching it he found that he could
| retain his position upon it only by sit
| ting in one position. This he took He
had brought along a spy-glass, or old
fashioned telescope, such as navigators
used to use, and this he now directed
carefully as the cryptogram directed
'Forty-one degrees and thirteen min
utes" This, of course referred only
to the angle of elevation above the Wis
ible horizon. He had along a pocket
compass, and by this he directed tn
spy glass so that it would take in what
ever bore north east and by north" or
northeast by north" as we would say
now.
He then moved the glass cautiously
up and down and right and left until
there came within his field of vision a
circular opening rift-in the foliage
of large tree which reared itself upon
a tableland at some distance across thel
broken country. In that rift he saw
something that CLEANED white Adjust
ing his focus he saw that the white OBJ
ject was human skull. All now
seemed plain to him-the cryptogra m
had spoken truth--the Gold Bug had re-
vealed to him the road to the re-estab
lishment of his fortune and the rescue
of his life from the morbidness with
which poverty had overwhelmed it, He
took careful bearings and it was the
next day that he eluded the watchful
care of Jupiter and discovered the giant
tulip tree-an adventure which nearly
cost MIN beating from his valet. BY
experiment he found that the circular
opening in the foliage of the great tree
was visible from nowhe ere but from tho
Devils Seat" Now he was assured
and sent for his friend from Charles
ton to come down and help him I'M
earth the concealed treasure. He had
missed the spot at first because of .Juni-
ter's stupidity in letting the Gold Bug
fall through the left eye of the skull
instead of through the right.
But" said his friend when he heard all
this, what difference did that makeo"
why, it made a great deal of differ
ence,' replied Legrand. by letting the
Gold Bug fall through the wrong eve of
the skull, Jupiter placed the point at
u hich it struck the earth at least two
inches and half from where it shoulc
have been. And the position of the neg
when the line with the tree as its axis
was drawn so feet further out with the
peg as one of it's foci as it were. made
a considerable distance from the right
spot. DO you see?' Yes, his friend saw.
but the cryhtogram said something of
a shot through the left eyer" well.
what matter does it make whether YOU
fire shot straight down or let some
thing fall straight down-they will strike
tie earth at practically the same place
from such an altitude"
After a while the man from Charleston
SAID: This story you tell is all very con-
yincing-but what about the Gold Bug?
Why did you insist so much upon it's
powers? Why did you insist upon carry
ing 1t upon whipcord when we went to
the tree and in dropping it, instead of
firing a bullet, through the left eye of the
skull? How excessively odd! And then
your grandiloquence-why did you in
dulge so much in that?'
well, to be frank with you," replied
Leyrand, II was little nettled that both
you and Jupiter, because you did not ex-
..I.. url,o IN.