“I think ordinarily he would have been safe in writing his cipher as he has done; but, be that as it may, I am confident you have made a most important discovery.”
CHAPTER X
FARMER JONES
The conclusion which I formed respecting the cipher telegram, so cleverly translated by Ben Mayberry, was that it concerned an intended robbery of one of the banks in Damietta, and that the crime, for the reason hinted in the dispatch, was postponed until the succeeding autumn.
Under such circumstances it will be seen that it was my duty to communicate with the general manager of the company, which I proceeded to do without delay. In reply, he instructed me to place myself in communication with the mayor of the city, whose province it was to make provision against what certainly looked like a contemplated crime.
This instruction was carried out, and the mayor promptly took every means at his command to checkmate any movement of the suspected party. He arranged to shadow him by one of the best detectives in the country, while I agreed to notify him of the contents of any more suspicious telegrams passing over the wires.
It need hardly be said that the friends of Ben Mayberry and myself took care that his exploit on the memorable winter night should not pass by unnoticed. The single daily paper published in Damietta gave a thrilling account of the carrying away of the bridge, and the terrible struggle of the boy in the raging river—an account which was so magnified that we laughed, and Ben was angry and disgusted. One of the best traits of the boy was his modesty, and it was manifest to everyone that this continued laudation was distasteful to him in the highest degree.
The cap-sheaf came when one of the metropolitan weeklies published an illustration of the scene, in which Ben was pictured as saving not only the mother and daughter, but the horse as well, by drawing them by main force upon an enormous block of ice! There was not the slightest resemblance to the actual occurrence, and the picture of our young hero looked as much like me as it did like Ben, who would have cried with vexation had not the whole thing been such a caricature that he was compelled to laugh instead.