The Eureka sentinel. [volume] (Eureka, Nev.) 1902-current, 1913-05-31

uOoF II open Ho ukuIts utC ot@h-
0. Thirteen kneeling figures With out
stretched hands.
10. Six gondolaa in procession; tritons
spouting.
II. Mutilated.
Il. Three figures holding out bags.
Such were the automatic and the bas-
reliefs in the backgrounds OF the
twelve hours.
As to the scenes they represented,
ST. Hilary had made a rough guess at
most of them. -Four or five of the
scenes he thought he had identified
Enthusiastically. All twelve of them,
were scenes out of Venetian history.
1 urged him for the results he had
gained so far.
There is very little to tell" he said
suIklly. Scene n represents ST.
Mark and his lion. the tutelary saint
of Venice. AS to the second scene, the
story is in every guidebook. b
artist Gentle Bellini visited the sultan
of Turkey and painted for him a pic
ture of the daughter Of Herodias bring
ing in the head of st. John the Bap-
fist on a charger. The sultan objected
that the neck was not rightly drawn
that when q man was beheaded no
mech appeared at all, In fact. The
artist disputed the point. To prove
himself in the right the sultan struck
off a slaves head"
"And the third hour-the ten disks
arranged in a row.?
1.-THE council of ten. I suppose"
well. well, the fourth, st. HilaryT"l
I cried sharply.
Perhaps you know it's significance.
7 don't. The camel doesn't figure in
Venetian history, so far as l know.
1t is true, Marco Polo Travelled to the
great khan of Cathay. The scene
might have beer a chapter out of his
life. But after wading through his
travels have failed to find it."
And the next. l suppose, is too bad
" mutilated to be Identified"
absolutely he grumbled.
"And the background Of the sixth
hour?" I asked, studying the photo
graph through a powerful magnifyingl
glass. Have you beer able to iden-
tify either of the two figures seated on
the balcony?"
Both" he replied with more ANNA,
| HON.. line HEuIt Will luC 0oSC SoR
is Dandolo. The figure crowned with
a wreath of laurel by his side repre-
sents the poet Petrarch. who was his
guest. The automatic figure that
dances the ten steps forward and
backward symbolizes u festival held
:. on the piazza after Venice had sub
dued her enemy Crete"
THE seventh hour represents" ]
ventured, 1.-THE legend of the doge re-
ceiving news of victory by a carrier
pigeon. Every child who feeds b
creatures on the piazza knows b
story. The tower must be the Campa-
nile.'
Quite right. The scene of the eighth
hour, continued st. Hilary, you dis
covered for yourself in the academy
this morning. The room of the palace
in the background is an exact repro
duction of the palace seen in the paint
ing of Carpaccio.'
And the ninth? ?" I demanded. feeling
that our information was meager in
deed.
Here again we can only guess. The
broken figure may be Carmagnola, the
soldier of fortune. The thirteen figures
kneeling in the background no doubt
typify his conquered enemies. The pro-
cession of the gondolas and the spout
ing tritons in the tenth probably repre-
sent the going of the doge in his bucen-
taur to wed the Adriatic."
And the eleventh hour must be-
quite hopeless. The automaton Is miss
ing, and the plate at the back is bat
tered beyond all recognition" I said
moodily.
THE twelfth is almost as obscure
concluded st. Hilary. 1.-The figures
holding out the bags are perhaps con-
quered Genoese offering ransom"
ut is not very promising" l con-
fessed. "Have you any theory whatever
as to the meaning of these scenes?"
II have a dozen. But they are air
equally impossible"
LET me hear one of them at least" I
urged.
well, then, if l repeat to you the
numbers 10, 4, Z. p, 1, 10, 3, 40, OF
what do you at once Think"
"A cipher I cried eagerly.
THAT is the theory that seems to me
the most hopeful at present. The num-
bers | have mentioned are the figures
of the different successive cenes 1t
is barely possible that these numbers
either alone or combined with other
numbers might bring us to the hiding
place of the casket. The trouble is
that not every scene has figures in h
background-the eighth. for instance,
And in hours ) and IL the backgrounds
are so mutilated that even If this theo-
ry were true we should lack those num-
bers to make our cipher complete"
And yet the existence of a cipher
seems the only possible way by which