Chapter 11 -2

That night, we estimated that the box of treasures was worth a total of 1.5 million; we didn't realize the value was too low until we sold the jewelry (a few pieces were not sold and kept for our own use). When we finally finished our investigation, the excitement subsided a little, and Legrand, seeing my impatience and eagerness to find out the answer to this strange riddle, talked about the details of the account. "You always remember," he said, "that night I handed you the sketch of the beetle. You always remember how I got mad at you when you insisted that I looked like a skull. I thought you were joking when you said it so badly at the beginning; but after thinking about the three strange spots on the back of insects, I admitted that your statement had some basis in fact. Even so, you laughed at me for not being able to draw, but I was still angry ——People think I'm an excellent painter—so, if you hand me the sheepskin, I'm going to crumple it up and throw it into the fire angrily."

①Weigh often. Generally, heavy items such as rice and charcoal are weighed; as for gold, silver and jewelry, gold is used. "You mean the piece of paper," I said. "No; it looks like paper. I thought it was paper at first, but when I drew on it, I saw that it was a piece of extremely thin sheepskin. That piece of sheepskin was very dirty, you must remember. Looking back, I was about to crumpled up, and I accidentally glanced at the sketch you had seen, and I didn’t need to mention how surprised I was. Believe it or not, I thought there was a picture of a beetle, but I saw a skeleton Head. I was stunned for a moment, and I couldn't use my brain in an orderly manner. I knew that what I drew was not the same as this skull—although the general outline was somewhat similar. I immediately took a candle and sat down. Going to the other side of the room, I looked at the sheepskin more carefully. Turning over the sheepskin, I saw that the picture I drew was still the same. At first, I just felt strange that the outline was not the same—how did it turn out to be the same? I don't know there is such an unusual coincidence. There is a skull painted on one side of the sheepskin, and the picture behind it is probably my picture of a scarab. Moreover, the outline and size of the skull are exactly the same as the one I drew. It was an unusual coincidence, and I was stunned for a moment. When people encounter such a coincidence, they usually have to be in a daze. I tried my best to figure out a clue—the relationship between cause and effect—but I couldn’t, and I was paralyzed for a while. When I wake up When I came here, I gradually understood, and I couldn’t help being shocked, even the coincidence didn’t surprise me that much. I clearly and clearly remembered that when I drew the sketch of scarab beetles, there was nothing on the sheepskin. Absolutely not; I I remember looking for the cleanest place, turning over the front and back. Of course, if you painted a skull, you wouldn’t lose sight of it. , A thought has passed through the depths of my mind, like a flash of a firefly. After the adventure last night, the truth is finally revealed. I stood up immediately, hid the sheepskin, and thought about it after you all left.

"After you left and Cupid fell asleep, I studied the matter more systematically. The first thing I wondered was how the sheepskin fell into my hands. The place where we found the scarab is on the mainland coast, the small island The road is far to the east. It is close to the high tide mark. As soon as I caught the beetle, I was bitten hard and threw it away. Cupid is always cautious. Seeing the beetle flying towards him, he first looked around for leaves Something, to catch worms. At that moment, he and I saw the sheepskin, which I thought was paper. The sheepskin was half buried in the sand, with one corner turned up, near the place where the sheepskin was found. I saw a pile of broken ships, which looked like long sampans. They had been piled there for a long time, because the shape of the ship's skeleton was almost invisible.

"In retrospect, Cupid picked up the sheepskin, wrapped the beetle in it, and handed it to me. We were on our way home shortly after, and we met Lieutenant Ge xx on the way. I showed him the worm, and he begged me to let him take it to As soon as I promised, he stuffed the worm into a waistcoat bag without the sheepskin, which I held in my hand while he looked at the beetle. Probably he was afraid that I would change my mind, and thought it best to go straight away. Take this windfall--you know, he's crazy about all things natural history. That's when I must have slipped the sheepskin into my pocket.

"You always remember that I went to the table to draw a sketch of a beetle, and looked around where the paper was, but couldn't find it. I looked in the drawer, but couldn't find it. I looked in my pocket, but I couldn't I hope to find an old letter, and my hand happened to touch the sheepskin. I have described the situation in which the sheepskin fell into my hand in such detail; because this impression is particularly deep. "Needless to say, you'll think I'm whimsical—but I've figured out what's inside and I can't close it. I've connected the two links of a big chain. There's a boat tied up by the sea, and there's a piece of sheepskin not far from the boat—— Not paper—it has a skull drawn on it. You will naturally ask, 'What's the matter here?' I answer you. Skulls, or skulls, are the well-known mark of pirates. When confronted, Always waving the skull flag.

"As I said just now, it is a piece of parchment, not paper. Parchment is durable, and it will never rot. It is rare to write small things on parchment; because it is only used for drawing and writing, it is better to use paper." Well. This thought reminded me that there is some truth in the skull, and there is some connection. I didn’t ignore the appearance of the sheepskin. Although one corner was damaged for some reason, I can still see that it was originally a rectangle. It is this kind of sheepskin that is used to record memos, record things that need to be remembered forever, and be carefully preserved.”

"But didn't you say that when the beetle was painted, there was no skull on the sheepskin," I interjected. "Since, according to you, the skull must have been painted some time after you painted the chafer (how and by whom, God knows), how can the boat and the skull be brought together?" "Well, that's where the blame lies; but I solved the mystery without thinking too much at the time. My steps are so steady that there is only one answer. For example, I reasoned like this: I painted the scarab. At that time, there was obviously no skull on the sheepskin. When the painting is finished, I will give it to you. I have been watching you until I saw you return the painting. Therefore, you did not draw the skull, and no one else painted it at that time. Then It's not done by manpower. After all, the painting is always painted.

"When I thought of this, I tried to recall all the little things that happened at that time, and I did remember them clearly. It was cold (ah, what a coincidence!), and there was a fire in the fireplace. I walked hot. , sat at the table. But you, dragged a chair and sat by the fire. I was handing you the sheepskin, and just as you were about to look, the dog 'Hurf' came in and threw himself on your shoulder. You caress it with your left hand, push it away, and hold the sheepskin with your right hand, hanging lazily between your knees, just close to the fire. I thought it was a fire burning paper, and I was about to call you, but I didn’t know you yet I have already taken it away, and I am busy looking at the painting. When I think about the details, I am sure that the skull painted on the sheepskin is the result of heat. You also know that there has been a kind of chemical medicine since ancient times, which can be used To write on paper or parchment, the handwriting will appear only when it is baked by fire. People often dissolve impure cobalt oxide in aqua regia, and then dilute it with four times the water; the result is a green solution. Containing impurities The cobalt is dissolved in pure nitric acid, and a red solution is produced. After the medicine written on the paper cools down, the color will fade after a certain period of time, which may be a matter of time, but it will become clear again when it is heated again.

"So I took a closer look at the skull. The outer circle of the skull, that is, the circle near the edge of the paper, is much clearer than the other parts. It is obviously because the heat is not comprehensive and uneven. I lit the fire immediately. Let every part of the sheepskin be roasted to a blazing fire. At first, it was only the vague line of the skull that was roasted a little deeper, but keep trying, and then at the corner of the sheepskin, diagonally opposite to the place where the skull was drawn, A figure clearly appeared. I thought it was a goat at the beginning. After a closer look, I realized that it was a lamb."

"Ha! Ha!" I said, "of course I'm not in a position to laugh at you--a million and a half dollars is a lot of money, and it's not for nothing--but you're not always going to get the first one in that combo." Come on three links—what special relationship can be found between pirates and goats?—you know, pirates have nothing to do with goats; mountain science has nothing to do with animal husbandry.” "But didn't I say that it's not a figure of a goat?" "Well, even if it's a lamb—it's about the same." "Almost, but not quite the same," Legrand said. "You have always heard of a Captain Kidd① (①referring to William Kidd (1645-1701), who was originally a British armed civilian accountant. He was ordered to hunt pirates along the coast of the Americas and the Indian Ocean, but he became a pirate instead. He ran across the Spanish merchant shipping route and robbed merchant ships. He was arrested in Boston in 1701 and sentenced in London on May 23rd. The Sullivan Island mentioned in this article was originally a den of pirates before the American Revolution. To the north of it is the Isle of Palms, formerly known as Long Island. Allan Poe associates it with the so-called treasure in this article. Captain Kidd's loot.) I took that animal figure at once to be a pun, or a hieroglyphic signature. I said it was a signature; for seeing its place on the vellum, I had an idea. Judging from this, the skull at the diagonal corner looks like a mark or a seal. But other than that, I didn’t see anything—no documents as I imagined—and didn’t contact me. The original text of the context, I am really cold."

"You probably want to find the letter between the stamp and the signature." "It's something like that. To tell you the truth, I can't help but have a premonition that I'm going to make a fortune. Why I have this idea, I can't say. Maybe it's better to say I hope so than believe it; Cupid said that the beetle was pure gold, and you know how he made me wonder? And then there was a whole series of accidents and coincidences--all very queer. It all happened on one day, and it was so cold Make a fire, maybe it's too cold to make a fire, if there is no fire, and if the dog just happened to break in at that moment, I won't see the skull at all, and I won't enjoy the treasure, what a coincidence!" "Go on—I can't wait." "Well; of course you've heard a good deal of the current story--there are countless rumors of rumors that Kidd's gang buried treasure somewhere along the Atlantic coast. These words must have some basis in fact. It's been around for so long , and go on and on, I think, only because the treasure is still buried and undiscovered. If Kidd picked up the loot for a while and took it away afterward, these rumors would not reach our ears as they are now. Now, mind you, these stories are about the treasure seekers, not the finders. If the pirate got the treasure back, that would be the end of the matter. I guess there was some accident—the local said instructions to hide The memo where the treasure was lost - he couldn't find it again. And the accident was known to his minions. Otherwise they probably wouldn't have heard of the treasure at all. They searched blindly for nothing After a while, I still couldn’t find it. They first spread the rumors that are widely known, and then spread around the world. Have you ever heard of any great treasures unearthed along the Atlantic coast?” "Never heard of it." "But it is known that Kidd's possessions are innumerable. So I think they must still be buried; and I tell you, don't be surprised, I have a hope in my heart, almost sure of it. I hope that this accidentally found sheepskin is the lost treasure map." "Then how did you proceed?" "I put the leather paper on the fire and heated it slowly, but I didn't see anything. I thought it might be the dust on the leather surface; so I carefully poured hot water on it, rinsed it, and washed it. , put it in a frying pan with the skull side down, and put the pan on a hot charcoal stove. Within a few minutes, the pan was burning hot. I picked up the sheepskin and looked at it. Le, I don’t need to mention it. I saw rows of numbers appearing in a few places on it. I put the sheepskin in the pan and baked it for a minute. When I took it out, all the words on it came out. Same as what you see now." Legrand had re-roasted the sheepskin, and showed it to me at this point.I saw the following red symbols scrawled between the skull and the goat: 53##$305))6*;4826)4#·)4#);806*;48$8¶;60))85;]8*;:# *8$83(88)5*$;46(;88*96*?;8)*$(;485);5*$2:*#(;4956*2 (5*-4)8¶;8*;4069285);)6$8)4##;1(#9;48081;8:8#1;48$85; 4) 485$528806*81(#9;48;(88;4(#?34;48)4#;161;:188;#?; "But I still don't understand it," I said, handing him back the sheepskin. "If the treasure of Jinshan Yinshan ①, as long as I solve this riddle, it will be mine, and I guarantee that I will not be able to get it." "That being said," Legrand said, "the answer to this riddle is not difficult at all. When you look at these symbols at first glance, you think it is difficult, but it is actually not difficult. Anyone who reads it will immediately guess that these symbols are passwords. In other words, there is meaning in it; however, as far as I know Kidd, he may not come up with any more esoteric code. I am sure at the moment that this is a simple code-but the sailor is simple-minded, If you don't have the code book, you can't solve it." "Did you really untie it?" "That's not easy; everything that is ten thousand times more difficult than this has been solved. Due to the influence of the surrounding environment and my natural habit, I have always been very interested in this kind of riddle. I don't believe that human beings can figure it out. A kind of charade, which human ingenuity cannot solve in a proper way. Indeed, once the coherence and clarity of the symbols are established, I hardly think of any difficulty in deriving meaning from them. "As far as the present example is concerned—and, of course, all secret documents are the same—it is first necessary to know which language the code is in; It varies according to these characteristics. Generally speaking, people who intend to solve the puzzle have only one way, which is to use the language they understand, and according to the possibility, try it out until you guess it right. However, the code in front of you, With the signature, all difficulties are solved. The pun of the word 'kidd' can only be understood in English. If it were not for this reason, I had tried French and Spanish earlier, because in the north coast of South America② Infested pirates, to write codes, of course, use these two languages. But in fact, I still assume that this code is in English. "You see these words are all connected together. It would be much easier to guess if they were separated. In that case, I should start with the shorter words first. If I get a single word, I will probably find it. For example, a or l, then I think insurance can solve the mystery. However, this password is all linked together. My first step is to determine the word that is used the least and the word that is used the most. After counting all of them, I will list I have a table like this: The symbol count of 8 has 33. ; has 26 symbols. There are 19 symbol counts for 4. # and ) have 16 symbols each. * There are 13 symbols in total. There are 12 in the symbol count of 5. The symbol of 6 counts 11. (There are 10 symbols in the count. There are 8 symbols for $ and 1 each. There are 6 symbol counts for 0. The 9 and 2 symbols have 5 each. : and 3 symbols each have 4. ?The symbol count for has 3. ¶; has 2 symbols. There are 1 symbol of 】- and · each. "Let's go back and talk about it. The most common word in English is the word e. The order of how much it is used is: aoidhnrstuycfglmwbkpqxz. The number of times e is used is the most. No matter how long an independent sentence is, it is rare to see that the word e is not used as the main character. Word. "Speaking of which, we have a basis from the beginning, not just a simple guess. This kind of table can obviously be used-but in this code, it can only be used to help solve a very small number of difficulties. As for the most frequently used symbol in this cipher is the letter 8, it may be assumed at the beginning that the letter 8 represents the letter e in the common alphabet. To prove whether this conjecture is correct, please see whether the letter 8 is often used overlappingly—because In English, the letter e is often overlapped—for example, words like 'meet', 'neet', 'spee4', 'been', 'agree', etc., are all overlapped. For example, although the password is short, the number of times the 8 characters are stacked is no less than five times. "Then let's say 8 is e. Speaking of all English words, 'the' is the most common word; then, let's see if there are three symbols in the same arrangement repeatedly, and the last symbol is 8. character. If you see such an arrangement of characters appearing repeatedly, then nine out of ten of them represent the word 'the'. Look it up and find that the word arranged in this way appears seven times, and the symbol is; 48. Therefore, it may be Assume; for t, 4 for h, 8 for e—now the last word must be right. In this way, we have taken a big step forward. "However, once a word is determined, a very important point can be determined; in other words, the beginning and ending of several other words can be determined. Try to quote the penultimate part of the full text; 48 examples of these three symbols Let's take a look—this word is not far from the end of the code. We know that the next ; List these symbols with known representative letters like this, and fill in the unknown letter in the blank space—— t eeth "We tried to fill in all the letters in this space, but we still couldn't spell a word ending with th. Since th can't be used in words starting with t, we can immediately leave these two letters aside. , shorten this word to tee, if it is needed, fill in the letters one by one as before, and only spell out a word 'tree' that can be read. Then recognize a new word, the word r It is represented by the symbol (, and the word 'the tree' is exactly juxtaposed. "Look at the short paragraph behind these two words, and see the arrangement of the three symbols; 48, let's use it as the ending of the first word. You can form such a few words. the tree; 4(#? 34the, in another way, replace it with an already known common letter, which is recognized as: thetree thr#? 3h the. "Well, if you leave the unknown symbols blank, or replace them with dots, you'll recognize words like this: the treeshr... h the, this immediately recognized the word 'through'.This discovery provides three new characters, o, u and g, which are composed of #, ?and 3 three symbols instead. "Just read the password carefully from the beginning to the end, and see if there are any known symbols connected together. Not far from the head, there are symbols arranged in this way, 83 (88, or written as egree, you can tell by just looking at it. It must be the ending part of the word 'degree', and this recognizes one more word, d is represented by $. "Four characters after the word 'degree', we can see this group of symbols, ;46(;88*. "Translate these known symbols, and the unknown ones can be recognized with small dots as usual; th·rtee, this arrangement reminds me of the word 'thirteen', which provides two new symbols, i and n are represented by 6 and * respectively. "Now look at the first few words of the password again, and see this group of symbols, 53##$. "Translate it as usual and get ·good, so we can be sure that the first word must be A, so the first two words are 'Agood'. "In order to avoid confusion, it is time to list the clues that have been discovered into a table. The list is as follows; 5 is equal to a $ is equal to d 8 is equal to e 3 is equal to g 4 is equal to h 6 is equal to i * is equal to n # equal to o (equal to r ;equal to t ?equal to u "In this way, eleven important words have been recognized. There is no need to go into the details of the puzzle. I have talked a lot, and I hope you believe that this kind of code is not difficult to solve; your theory of discovering these codes It’s a bit of a bottom line. However, to be honest, the cipher encountered before me is the simplest one. Now I just need to translate all the symbols on the sheepskin that have been explained. Please see: "'A good mirror is in Pishop's Inn The magic chair Forty-one and thirteen minutes North-northeast largest branch Seventh branch East from the skull's left eye Shoot a straight line from the front of the tree through the bullet Extend fifty feet.'" "But the riddle still looks pretty incomprehensible," I said. "'Magic chair', 'skull head', and 'Pishop's inn' are all cryptic words, how do you know what they really mean?" "To tell you the truth," said Legrand, "at first glance, the matter still looks very difficult. I tried to divide the whole text into the original sentences according to the original intention of writing the cipher." "You mean punctuation?" "Something like that." "But how can it be done?" "I think the writer of the code will link these words together indiscriminately. It has its own purpose, which will increase the difficulty of solving the puzzle. Speaking of which, if you don't have a good mind, if you think about it, it will happen nine out of ten Overdone. In the process of writing a cipher, when a paragraph is written, it is natural to add a period or a comma. In this kind of place, he often connects the symbols closer. If you look at this manuscript carefully, you will see It is not difficult to discern that there are five places that are particularly close together. Based on this hint, I divide the sentence like this: "'A good mirror is in the magic chair of Xiao Fu's inn—forty one and thirteen minutes— North by Northeast - Largest Branch Seventh Branch East - Shot from Skull's Left Eye - A straight line from the front of the tree extends fifty feet through the bullet. '" "Even if it's so divided, I still don't understand it," I said. "For a few days, I was also baffled," replied Legrand, "for a few days, I was trying my best to find the so-called "Pishop's Hotel" in the vicinity of Sullivan Island; 'Inn' is a useless word, so don't worry about it. Seeing that I couldn't get any information on this aspect, I planned to expand the scope of my investigation and investigate more systematically. At that time, one morning, on a whim, I suddenly remembered This 'Pyshop's Inn' may have something to do with a family named Bethelph, who had an old mansion four miles north of Sullivan's Isle some years ago. I therefore I went to the manor and asked the elderly black people in the manor again. Finally, an old woman who was nearly seventy years old said that she had heard of such a place as Bethel's Castle, and she might take me there, but she said that it was neither a castle nor a castle. , not an inn, but a high rock wall. "I promised to pay her a lot of hard-earned money, and she hesitated, then agreed to go with me. We found it without much trouble, and as soon as I sent her away, I set out to investigate. The 'castle' was There is a mess of cliffs, one of which not only looks like a fake rock, but also towers into the sky. I climbed up and reached the top of the cliff, and I didn't know how to go next. "While I was busy with my brains, I beheld a narrow ledge jutting out from the east side of the wall, about a yard below the crest on which I was standing; protruding about eighteen inches, at most a foot wide, at the There is an alcove in the cliff above the eaves, which looks similar to a kind of bucket chair used by the old people. I am sure that it is the "magic chair" mentioned in the original manuscript, and the whole mystery of the riddle is solved . "I know that 'a good mirror' can only refer to a telescope; because the word 'mirror' rarely refers to anything else for a sailor. I immediately understood that I must use a telescope to look at it, and I must look at it in a certain place, and must not change it. I simply think that the two phrases 'forty one and thirteen minutes' and 'north-northeast' refer to the direction the telescope is pointing in. I was so excited to discover all this, I hurried home and got the telescope , back to the rock wall. "I climbed down to the ledge and saw that there was only one posture to sit on. It turned out that my earlier idea was not wrong at all. I took a telescope. Needless to say, 'Forty One Thirteen 'fen' can only refer to the height above the horizon visible to the naked eye, because the phrase 'north-northeast' clearly indicates the direction of the horizon. I immediately determined the direction of 'north-northeast' with a pocket compass; and then guessed, Try to use the telescope to look at an angle close to 41 degrees. I carefully move the telescope up and down. When I move to the back, I see a big tree in the distance, which is taller than all trees. There is a circular gap between the leaves, or I said it was a gap, so I concentrated on it. I only saw a white spot in the middle of the gap, but I couldn't see what it was at first. Focused the telescope and looked again, and then I saw that it was a human skull. "When I found this human skull, I was very optimistic and confident that the riddle had been solved; because the sentence 'the largest branch, the seventh branch east' can only refer to the position of the skull on the tree, as for 'from the skull There is only one interpretation of the phrase "shot in the left eye", and it is the way to find treasure. I see that the way is to shoot a bullet from the left eye of the skull, and draw a straight line from the nearest point of the tree, in other words In other words, a straight line, passing through the 'bullet', or the place where the bullet fell, and extending another fifty feet, will point out a certain place-I think there may be at least a treasure hidden in the ground." "These are obvious at first glance, and although they are cleverly said, they are also clear and simple," I said. "What do you do now that you've left the 'Peeshop Hotel'?" "Well, I took a closer look at the direction of the tree, and then turned around and went home. Unexpectedly, as soon as I left the 'Magic Chair', the round mouth disappeared; later, no matter how I looked at it, I couldn't see it. According to my opinion The most ingenious thing in all of this is the fact that if you look at it from the front eaves of the rock wall, you can't see the round mouth at any point. I have tried it again and again, so I am convinced that this is a fact. "I was accompanied by Cupid on my expedition to the Pishop's Hotel, and he must have seen my bewildered manner during the past few weeks, and he has taken special care not to let me go out alone. However, the next day, I got up early and thought of sneaking away, and went to the mountains to look for the tree. It took a lot of trouble to find it. When I got home at night, my page was going to beat me up. You are as familiar with the adventures in the future as I am." "I see," I said, "that when you dug the soil for the first time and dug in the wrong place, it was because of Cupid's stupidity that he did not hang the beetle from the left eye of the skull, but from the right eye." "That's right. This mistake is two and a half inches away from the 'bullet'. In other words, the water pile closest to the tree is two and a half inches away; Nothing; however, the closest point of the 'bullet' to the tree is just two points that determine the direction of a straight line; of course, although this error is slight at the beginning, the longer the line is stretched, the greater the error will be, and after fifty If I hadn't been convinced that the treasure was buried somewhere, we'd have had a hard time every day." "But you were bragging about it, and wielding the beetle like that--how queer! I thought you must be crazy then. Why didn't you hang the bullets out of the skull, and why did you hang the bugs?" "Aha, to be honest, at that time, seeing that you clearly suspected that I was out of my mind, and you were somewhat angry, you made up your mind to make a little mystery and punish you secretly at will. Therefore, you deliberately waved the beetle, and therefore deliberately hung the beetle from the tree. Heard You said that the beetle is very heavy, so I came up with the idea of ​​hanging the beetle." "Well, I see; there's only one thing I can't figure out now. What about the two skeletons found in the pit?" "I'm as incapable of explaining that as you are. But there's only one theory that seems to make sense--it's dreadful to think that the atrocities I'm referring to have actually happened. It's clear, Kidd--if it's Kidd To bury this treasure, I am sure of that--it is clear that he must have helpers to help him bury it. When it is buried, he may think it best to kill all those who take part in the burial. Maybe he will take advantage of it The assistants are busy in the pit, giving them two hits with their hoes; maybe a dozen—who can say?"