I forgot my folly in passing Jacqueline, and her cold greeting. Here was proof indisputable that we were really on the track of the casket at last.
“But why,” queried St. Hilary, knitting his forehead in perplexity, “should it be the fifty-seventh palace, and not the sixtieth?”
I opened the Bible, and again read the story. I saw our mistake immediately. In our haste to test this new theory of mine we had not read the narrative with sufficient care.
“There is another verse that we have omitted to read. It follows immediately after.” I read it aloud:
And within three days they could not declare the riddle.
“You observe the expression ‘within.’ That is to say, we were not to look for the sixtieth palace, but for the fifty-seventh, or the third within sixty.”
“Ah, that is quite clear,” cried St. Hilary with a sigh of relief. “And now for the next landmark. Read your passage of the second hour again.”
And there went forth a champion out of the camp of the Philistines, named Goliath, whose height was six cubits and a span.
“Six cubits and a span,” he mused. “What the deuce are the six cubits and a span?”
“Let us look around.” I motioned to the gondolier to rest on his oars.