“Wait—ah! wait!” urged the old German. “Let us have that again, fräulein,” and crossing to Sir Felix’s big mahogany writing-table, he opened the Hebrew text of Ezekiel upon it. “Where do you say the Professor commences—at the tenth chapter, eighth verse—eh? Good!” and he hastily found the reference. “Now?”
“Just tell this gentleman,” urged Jim, “tell him exactly what you heard.”
“Well, starting with the eighth verse, he commences with what he termed the first ‘wāw’ sign.”
“Zo! that’s the equivalent of the number 6,” Haupt remarked.
“Then the eleventh letter.”
The old professor counted and wrote down the letter in question in Hebrew characters.
“The sixty-sixth,” said the girl.
The old man counted sixty-six, while Sir Felix and Jannaway watched with intense, almost breathless interest. Here was the secret, snatched from their dreaded opponent, Arminger Griffin!
“And now the six hundred and sixty-sixth,” the girl went on, apparently thoroughly at home with the strangely assorted trio.
This took some time to count, but presently it was accomplished, and the girl time after time gave the old professor directions—the fiftieth letter, the two-hundredth letter, and so on.