And it came to pass, as the camels had done drinking at the well, that the man took a golden earring of half a shekel weight, and two bracelets for her hands of ten shekels’ weight of gold.
“This is obscure enough,” I said ruefully. “This jargon of a golden earring and of half a shekel weight and two bracelets of ten shekels’ weight will take some time to reason out, especially as we have no idea what to look for.”
“And I think.” St. Hilary remarked, “we are to be interrupted. Here comes one of the priests of the seminary to see what business we have in his garden.”
“Gentlemen,” asked the padre politely, as we bowed with an assurance that belied my feelings at least, “you are looking for some one? I saw you admitted a moment ago by the gate yonder.”
“Yes,” boldly lied St. Hilary once more. “We were about to ring your bell. We went to the House of the Angel by mistake. We are architects, and we have heard that you have a wonderful old dial. We are making a study of the curious dials of Venice. Would you show us yours?”
St. Hilary’s question was not so idle as might appear. He was ignoring the existence of the fifth landmark, and was asking for the sixth landmark, which we had identified in this way. The Venetian scene of the sixth hour, it will be remembered, was that of the Doge and the poet Petrarch seated in the balcony of San Marco, overlooking the Piazza, and watching the festivities below, symbolized by the dancing automaton figure, that advanced ten steps to the front and ten to the rear. The parallel story in the Bible we had found by a rather roundabout process. Some days before I had accidentally made the discovery that the face of the Doge bore a remarkable resemblance to the prophet Isaiah as depicted in one of the mosaics of San Marco. Naturally, then, when we hunted up the Biblical stories of the hour, after my return from church, we looked for a story in which the prophet Isaiah figured as one of the characters. The concordance at the back of my Oxford Bible referred us to the story of the Jewish King Hezekiah, who, sick unto death, went to the prophet Isaiah for a sign that he should recover his strength. And this was the verse:
And Hezekiah said to Isaiah, What shall be the sign? And Isaiah said, Shall the shadow of the dial go back ten degrees or shall the shadow go forward?
The little automaton figure advancing and retreating ten steps symbolized plainly the going forward and backward of the shadow. This was significant in itself, and might have made us tolerably sure that a dial was to be the landmark. But when, in the light of this story, we looked carefully at the railing of the balcony as photographed in our snap-shot, we noticed at once that the ironwork of the railing was of intertwined circles, intersected by diameters drawn through each of their centers. The circles, then, stood for the dial; the diameter, for the needle of the dial. We might be reasonably certain that our search would be narrowed to more and more defined limits. Even without the landmark of the fifth hour, by which we should be able to discover the locality of the dial for ourselves (provided always that we could interpret the numbers aright), it was not an extravagant hope of St. Hilary’s that the padre might direct us to the landmark of the sixth hour. I waited breathlessly for his answer. Let the gods be propitious; let fortune smile!
The gaunt but handsome face of the young priest was lighted up with a charming smile.
“But it will be an honor,” he said, “to show our curious dial to the American gentlemen.”