To dine with Admiral Farragut! That was glory enough for a lifetime; or at least to be deemed worthy of such a distinction. Our friend Somers was no snob; he "looked up" to great people, especially to those who were really great. He pretended to no familiarity with his superiors, though some of the officers were dying with envy at the notice taken of him by the captain and first lieutenant of the ship. He did not assume to be familiar with men who had won a deathless fame in defending their country's cause. Perhaps there was not an officer in the fleet who would so highly appreciate such a compliment as that of which he was now the happy recipient.
When he was relieved from the deck, and went down into the ward-room, the news had gone before him, and the "idlers" there congratulated him upon his rising fame. But Somers broke away from them as soon as he could decently do so, and shut himself up in his state-room. He was actually dizzy at the idea of sitting down at the table with "Brave Old Salt" in the cabin of the Hartford; and though he took the cabalistic note of Mr. Pillgrim from his pocket, at least half an hour was wasted before he could apply his mind undividedly to the difficult problem before him. Finally, the hope of making a grand revelation to the admiral on the morrow fired his zeal to such a pitch that the work looked like play to him.
Somers opened the mysterious document and spread it out on the desk, at which he seated himself. It looked dark and hopeless, with its dots and dashes, its horizontals and perpendiculars, its curves and crosses. We present the note in full, that our readers may be able to appreciate the difficulty of the task he had undertaken.
If Somers had been a student of the occult sciences, he might have been more hopeful. An hour's hard study brought a gleam of light. He thought the note must be signed by Langdon. There were seven letters in the signature. This was his first ray of hope. He then placed all the letters of the alphabet in a column, and against each made the character that represented it in the cipher. Six letters were thus interpreted.
The next step was to place each of the letters thus discovered over its sign in the note. The second and third words of the epistle then stood, the eights being for undiscovered letters, as follows: 88nxlo8ond.
"Ben Lomond!" exclaimed Somers, as he gave a smart rap on the desk to indicate his joy at the discovery.
Three more letters were gained, and the oblique cross was only a mark to divide the words. The three letters before Ben Lomond must be, t h e. The solution began to be easy, though it required a long time to reach it. At midnight, when he was called to take the mid watch, he had it written out as follows:—
Washington, Twentieth of June.
The Ben Lomond is at Mobile, fitting out. Mallory gives you the command. The forts will be attacked by the first of August. You must get her out before that time.
Langdon.