Time enough, then, to test application of the eccentric’s cryptogram, copper-plated line by line, to a locality unsuspected by their enemies and chosen by themselves quite through chance. Not a doubt shadowed his mind as he awaited the zero hour. The lines fitted, every one.
“List’ to the Nubian roar”—to the night noises of the surrounding metropolitan monster, uncaged in Zoo, never-sleeping, ever-pacing.
“And whisper of poplars four”—the branches of two staunch old rustlers among the pines made silver lace of the moonlight just outside the wall. Doubtless the two that had been sentenced to death had been very much alive at the time of the cryptogram’s composition.
“’Tis on a height”—where was one so high to the hoary-headed veteran as this on which he delighted to raise his country’s flag?
“Eighteen and twelve will show”—Jane had named these very figures as the date on the memorial tablet placed in the wall without. Not rods, not yards, not feet did they stand for, but a date.
“Begin below”—and below was a block that rocked “as rocks wrong’s overthrow!”
Not until the inverted bowl of the moon was a central ceiling light did Why Not Pape move to answer the queer questions in his mind. Gently he then lifted the coat-coverlet off the woman below; wrapped it into a roll; with it replaced the pillow of his knee. A low command he gave the police dog to lie still. Swiftly he crossed to the threshold stone, tilted it far enough to one side to assure himself it was a thin slab and muttered in a sort of ecstacy:
“Count eighteen—twelve,
Take heart and delve.”
His maximum of strength was required to turn the stone upon its back on the floor of the block-house. Across the earth upon which it so long had lain scurried the crawling things that thrive in under-rock dampness. Down on his knees dropped Pape and, with a slate-like fragment of rock which had broken off in the fall, began to remove the soft soil. Soon the emergency implement met obstruction. No longer needing advice to “take heart,” he cast aside the slate and began scooping out the earth around this object with bare hands.
A heavy touch upon his arm shocked him into an over-shoulder glance. The Belgian stood bristling just behind him; had tapped him with a paw insistent for a share in the digging job. Willingly enough Pape accepted his efficient aid down to the top of an earthen pot of the Boston bean variety. More excited than in past hunts for seldom-found gold pockets of his early prospecting days, the Westerner pushed aside the dog; worked his two nail-torn hands down and down the smooth-curved sides. With a slow tug, he lifted what he could no longer doubt was the crock of the crypt. Reverently as though he were an acolyte bearing some holy vessel to an altar, he carried it across the room and placed it at the feet of the low-seated high-priestess drawn up against the wall.