"What a queer message," said Henry. "What does it mean?"
"It means," said Captain Hardy, "that the Germans have done their very best to deceive us. They not only changed their cipher, but they sent their message in code. We have read their cipher, but we know no more than we did before. We can never work out their code. All we can do is to guess at the meaning. Our difficulties, instead of being ended, are just beginning. I am more and more convinced that this message is important."
CHAPTER XVIII
TOO LATE
The look of astonishment that appeared on every face at the reading of the message was soon succeeded by one of bewilderment.
"How are we ever going to find out what it means?" demanded Willie. "We can keep juggling letters around until we get them into the proper combinations to make words out of them. But here we've got the words. And they don't mean anything to us. And I don't see how we're ever going to find out what they do mean. We couldn't juggle words around, too, could we, Captain Hardy?"
"No, Willie. There is no use trying that. The spies know what the words mean, all right enough. And nobody else does, unless he has the key to the code. All we can do is to guess what they mean."
"It will take some tall guessing," laughed Roy. "I don't even know what two of those words mean. Read 'em, Willie—those two long ones."
Everybody laughed. "B-A-L-A-K-L-A-V-A-N R-E-N-D-E-Z-V-O-U-S," spelled Willie. "They've got me stopped, too. What do they mean, Captain Hardy?"