"'Then you were actors? And this lady was an actress too, eh?'
"'Yes. Once our whole company went to Eszek, and there we acted a whole piece in the Croatian tongue without understanding a word of its meaning. A man is like a starling. If he repeats a thing a hundred times it remains in his head although he does not understand it.'
"'Look here, then! Read but two lines of this despatch a hundred times over, half an hour will do, and see if it remains in your head.'
"I consented. A quarter of an hour had not yet elapsed when I said that I was ready. I gave the General the despatch back again, and asked for ink and paper. And then slowly, meditatively, I wrote down the contents of those two lines letter by letter.
"'You've got a marvellous headpiece,' said the General, in amazement. 'And has that lady of yours just such a marvellously retentive capacity as you have?'
"'Just the same.'
"'Then I consider the stratagem as feasible.'"
Here I could not help leaping to my feet. "What!" cried I, "you actually undertook to learn by heart a whole despatch written in cipher?"
"No, my sweet friend! I won't deceive you as I deceived that other man. The whole thing was a delusion. The cryptograms which reached the Commandant of the fortress were entrusted to Rengetegi, that he might unpod them with a secret key. He communicated this key to me. One had only to know a single word whose consecutive letters repeat all the characters of the alphabet in different series. The whole thing only required a little calculation; there was no need to rack one's brains about it. With the assistance of the secret key I first of all deciphered the cipher, and then I retransferred it into its original rigmarole."
"But are you aware," I interrupted, "that if the General had found you out, he would have had you shot on the spot?"