And turning the blade, Standish showed upon the reverse from the sun, moon, and stars, an ornamented medallion close to the hilt, containing certain cabalistic signs and marks. Below this was an inscription of several lines in totally different characters.[1]
"And that is a charm to keep a man alive?" asked Alden with bated breath and eager eyes.
"So that old man said," replied Standish, "but I concern myself little with such matters, having ever found my own right arm enough to keep my head, and the grace of God better than any heathen charm."
"And did he read it, and the rest?" pursued Alden.
"Yes, he read it, or at the least he muttered something in some outlandish gibberish," replied the captain, laughing a little shamefacedly. "And he told me its meaning, partly in Latin, for we spoke together in that tongue, but I am such a dullard that I forgot the words as soon as he spoke them, and so asked him to write them down. Then he fell a pondering again, and said like the pastor, that the two inscriptions differed in every way, and he must muse awhile and look in his books before he could read them fairly, and he asked me to leave the sword with him. So seeing him so venerable and honorable a man I consented, although not willingly, and went my way. The next morning I sought him again not certain but that in the night he and my sword and the charm had all flown out of window together and gone to join the Witch of Endor. But no, there he sat, and the sword before him, as if they never had stirred since I left. And the old man gave me a bit of parchment covered with crabbed Latin script, and told me I should find therein the sense of my two inscriptions, though there were words even he could not decipher. So I put the parchment in my pouch, and reached my hand to the sword, when he withheld it and said,—
"'This charm avails nothing for thee, my son, because it was not framed for thee, nor dost thou swear by the powers therein invoked; but I can frame one that will avail, and will protect thee from any weapon raised against thee. I have learned somewhat I never knew, in studying thy sword, and I would fain repay thee in kind.'
"Now lad, as he spoke, a certain terror seized me lest I should be found dabbling in the black art, and I said, with more than enough vehemence, that I wanted no charm, nor did I fear mortal weapon or mortal foe, for in God was my trust, and He was able to hold me scathless, or to take me when He would. And then, John, a fancy seized me, a foolish fancy of romance perhaps, but still I mind not thy knowing, so thou 'lt not babble of it to others. I asked the old man could he put what I had just said into the same tongue with that heathen charm, and so shape it that I could have it carved upon my blade above the sun and moon and stars, which those Persian idolaters worship and had graved there almost as idols. And he smiled again in that grewsome fashion of his, and said ay he could do that much, and that as three possessors had already put invocations to their gods upon the blade it was but fit I should do so in my turn.
"I liked not the quip, nor the evening of a Christian man's belief to idolatrous worship, but yet the idea of the Christian charm, if one might call it so, had taken fast possession of my mind, and I felt as though it were snatching the good blade from the powers of heathenesse and giving it to God. So I put what I would say in few words, and the old man wrought upon it till he had it to his mind, and at the last took a pencil dipped in some wizard's ink or other and drew these signs upon the sword as you see them, bidding me take it to an armorer and have them cut in just as they stood. So I did, choosing, you may be sure, the armorer who had given me the sword, and showing him, as I have you, that this is no heathen charm, but the sign of a Christian man's faith."
"And what do they mean, all three of them?" asked Alden reverently. "I see the figures 1149 graved clearly enough, but what mean the other two rows?"
"My lad, thou seest wrong. The 1 and 4 and 9 are but symbols of letters not there set down, and the whole, partly from that same foolish fancy I told thee of, and partly because the old scholar bade me never tell it lest some other man should steal his learning, and partly because Gideon hath kept the first secret so many years that I feel like trusting him with another, for all these reasons I promised myself and the scholar and Gideon that I would never tell the thing to mortal man, nor even the rendering of the other devices; and lest I should be tempted to forego my word, sith I claim to be no stronger than Samson, or lest some one should surprise the secret unawares, I cut the piece of parchment in two pieces, and handed them back to the old scholar, who disguised not his huge content thereat. So thou seest, John, two of the three inscriptions I could not unravel to thee if I would, and of the third thou wilt not ask me, since it is guarded by a promise."