“Now,” said I, “the order of precedence among the letters, according to the frequency of their recurrence, is this, e a o i t d h n r s u y c f g l m w b k p q x z. This, however, is their order, according to the number of words begun by each respectively, s c p a d i f b l b t, etc. The most frequent compounds are th, ng, ee, ll, mm, tt, dd, nn. Pray, Matthew, do you see any one sign repeated oftener than the others in this cryptograph?”
“Yes, 8; it is repeated twenty-three times,” said Fletcher, after a pause.
“Then you may be perfectly satisfied that it stands for e, which is used far oftener than any other letter in English. Next, look along the lines and see what letters most frequently accompany it.”
“2 § undoubtedly; it follows 8 in several places, and precedes it in others. In the third line we have 2 § 8—82 §—§ 8—8 § 8 and then 2 § 8 again.”
“Then we may fairly assume that 2 § 8 stands for the.”
“The, to be sure,” burst forth Fletcher. “Now the next word will be money. No! it can’t be, the e will not suit; perhaps it is treasure, gold, hoard, store.”
“Wait a little bit,” I interposed. “Now look what letters are doubled.”
“88 and 22,” said my friend Mat.
“And please observe,” I continued, “that where I draw a line and write A you have e, then double t, then e again. Probably this is the middle of a word, and as we have already supposed 2 to stand for t, we have—ette—, a very likely combination. We may be sure of the t now. Near the end of the third line, there is a remarkable passage, in which the three letters we know recur continually. Let us write it out, leaving blanks for the letters we do not know, and placing the ascertained letters instead of their symbols. Then it stands—eχtheχeth—heχeheχ ethe—. Now here I have a χ repeated four times, and from its position it must be a consonant. I will put in its place one consonant after another. You see r is the only one which turns the letters into words.—erthereth—here . here the—surely some of these should stand out distinctly separated—er there th— here . here the. Look! I can see at once what letters are wanting; th— between there and here must be than, and then ✠ here is, must be, where. So now I have found these letters,
8 = e, r = t, § = h, χ = r, — = a, + = n, ✠ = w,