"In Greek," said I.
"No, in Hebrew," said he, "Hebrew words in Greek letters, and so put there by a most knowing mind, I gather, the same mind and hand which captured the wren, and sent her out with her message; and if you add to these proofs of wit the craftsmanship in the pieta, and Herr Tschudi's admission of Dees' oratory, you get an intelligence of many gifts, as 'brilliant' perhaps as 'Savonarola.' Dees apparently made the pieta some time shortly before his imprisonment, when he was not without bodings of his doom; and the Hebrew words in Greek letters were meant to baffle a half-classic like the baron, in case it should ever occur to the baron to read what he would assume to be some pious motto in such a place."
"But what are the words?" I asked.
"These, Arthur," said he: "'If I am killed, it will be the lord's doing; if imprisoned, at the bottom of the north-west tower.'"
"But that is nearly everything!" I cried: "what luck! I wonder what was Dees' hope.... But do you mean to say, Aubrey, that you would betray to Herr Tschudi that we are in possession of this wonderful piece of knowledge?"
"It has seemed to me that we have dallied and been mild more than enough, Arthur."
At this, I must confess, there rose in my mind the old rhyme: "he never said a foolish thing, he never did a wise one." "But, Aubrey," said I, "is it not clear that the last thing which we must do is to threaten and challenge these people? We should only provoke a smile; even our liberty, our lives, are in their hands. Pray listen to me in this for Emily's sake, for all our sakes. We can effect nothing by impulse and spasmodic high-handedness when our power is just nil. And if we betray our knowledge of Dees' dungeon in this fashion, what is to prevent them removing him to another?"
"Well, your judgment is always good," said he, with a smile: "there stands the letter, written, at any rate, but it need not be actually sent; all life is the same tangle, I suppose, in which not only the why but even the how of conduct remains enigmatic, and the maze is without clue, save at its end," and he threw himself on our old sofa, with his hands behind his head, while I at our window-garden of fuchsias and oleanders tore up the note, looking down an avenue of the wood, till presently I said: "I wonder if Dees' dungeon has a window?"
"Castles of that date," answered Langler, "have not usually dungeon-windows; but Dees' dungeon has one, of course."
"How do you know?"