"At last in despair I cast aside the caution I had hitherto exercised, and placed the writing before my tutor; but, eminent runologist as he was, he could extract no meaning from it.
"Anxious to begin the search for my father, I parted from the Norse professor; but yet, amid all my wanderings through Europe, I never quite gave up the hope of being able to decipher the inscription.
"Now, a few weeks ago, it occurred to me that the art of secret writing may have been practised in Norse times just as in our own. Hitherto, following modern usage, I had always read the inscription from left to right: why not from right to left, as ancient Hebrew is read? I tried the course, but it made me no wiser.
"However, the cryptographic idea grew upon me, and was not to be shaken off. As you perceive, it is a four-line inscription; I therefore read downwards, combining the letters in the first line with those directly beneath in the second, third, and fourth lines, but with no success. I read upwards: disappointment was still my lot. I tried the plan of omitting every alternate letter. I seemed as far off as ever."
"But you succeeded in the end," said Beatrice.
"Yes. By playing at random with the letters, I hit upon the key to the decipherment. Observe this character," continued Idris, pointing to one in the first line, shaped thus:—*. "It is called Hagl, and corresponds to our H. As it is slightly larger than the other letters, I had come to regard it as the initial one in the series, and the sequel proved that I was correct. Beginning with this Hagl, I omitted the three following letters, taking the fifth which corresponds to our i."
"That gives us H-i," said Beatrice.
"Just so. Passing over the next three characters we come to the equivalent of our l."
"H-i-l," said Beatrice.
"Proceeding in this way I add two more letters, and the result is a woman's name, as common in Norse days as in our own."