THIS WAS a contingency1 which neither Joam Dacosta nor his people could have anticipated. In fact, as those who have not forgotten the first scene in this story are aware, the document was written in a disguised form in one of the numerous systems used in cryptography.
But in which of them?
To discover this would require all the ingenuity2 of which the human brain was capable.
Before dismissing Benito and his companions, Judge Jarriquez had an exact copy made of the document, and, keeping the original, handed it over to them after due comparison, so that they could communicate with the prisoner.
Then, making an appointment for the morrow, they retired3, and not wishing to lose an instant in seeing Joam Dacosta, they hastened on to the prison, and there, in a short interview, informed him of all that had passed.
Joam Dacosta took the document and carefully examined it. Shaking his head, he handed it back to his son. “Perhaps,” he said, “there is therein written the proof I shall never be able to produce. But if that proof escapes me, if the whole tenor5 of my life does not plead for me, I have nothing more to expect from the justice of men, and my fate is in the hands of God!”
And all felt it to be so. If the document remained indecipherable, the position of the convict was a desperate one.
“We shall find it, father!” exclaimed Benito. “There never was a document of this sort yet which could stand examination. Have confidence — yes, confidence! Heaven has, so to speak, miraculously6 given us the paper which vindicates7 you, and, after guiding our hands to recover it, it will not refuse to direct our brains to unravel8 it.”
Joam Dacosta shook hands with Benito and Manoel, and then the three young men, much agitated9, retired to the jangada, where Yaquita was awaiting them.
Yaquita was soon informed of what had happened since the evening — the reappearance of the body of Torres, the discovery of the document, and the strange form under which the real culprit, the companion of the adventurer, had thought proper to write his confession10 — doubtless, so that it should not compromise him if it fell into strange hands.
Naturally, Lina was informed of this unexpected complication, and of the discovery made by Fragoso that Torres was an old captain of the woods belonging to the gang who were employed about the mouths of the Madeira.
“But under what circumstances did you meet him?” asked the young mulatto.
“It was during one of my runs across the province of Amazones,” replied Fragoso, “when I was going from village to village, working at my trade.”
“And the scar?”
“What happened was this: One day I arrived at the mission of Aranas at the moment that Torres, whom I had never before seen, had picked a quarrel with one of his comrades — and a bad lot they are!— and this quarrel ended with a stab from a knife, which entered the arm of the captain of the woods. There was no doctor there, and so I took charge of the wound, and that is how I made his acquaintance.”
“What does it matter after all,” replied the young girl, “that we know what Torres had been? He was not the author of the crime, and it does not help us in the least.”
“No, it does not,” answered Fragoso; “for we shall end by reading the document, and then the innocence11 of Joam Dacosta will be palpable to the eyes of all.”
This was likewise the hope of Yaquita, of Benito, of Manoel, and of Minha, and, shut up in the house, they passed long hours in endeavoring to decipher the writing.
But if it was their hope — and there is no need to insist on that point — it was none the less that of Judge Jarriquez.
After having drawn12 up his report at the end of his examination establishing the identity of Joam Dacosta, the magistrate13 had sent it off to headquarters, and therewith he thought he had finished with the affair so far as he was concerned. It could not well be otherwise.
On the discovery of the document, Jarriquez suddenly found himself face to face with the study of which he was a master. He, the seeker after numerical combinations, the solver of amusing problems, the answerer of charades15, rebuses16, logogryphs, and such things, was at last in his true element.
At the thought that the document might perhaps contain the justification17 of Joam Dacosta, he felt all the instinct of the analyst18 aroused. Here, before his very eyes, was a cryptogram19! And so from that moment he thought of nothing but how to discover its meaning, and it is scarcely necessary to say that he made up his mind to work at it continuously, even if he forgot to eat or to drink.
After the departure of the young people, Judge Jarriquez installed himself in his study. His door, barred against every one, assured him of several hours of perfect solitude20. His spectacles were on his nose, his snuff-box on the table. He took a good pinch so as to develop the finesse21 and sagacity of his mind. He picked up the document and became absorbed in meditation22, which soon became materialized in the shape of a monologue23. The worthy24 justice was one of those unreserved men who think more easily aloud than to himself. “Let us proceed with method,” he said. “No method, no logic25; no logic, no success.”
Then, taking the document, he ran through it from beginning to end, without understanding it in the least.
The document contained a hundred lines, which were divided into half a dozen paragraphs.
“Hum!” said the judge, after a little reflection; “to try every paragraph, one after the other, would be to lose precious time, and be of no use. I had better select one of these paragraphs, and take the one which is likely to prove the most interesting. Which of them would do this better than the last, where the recital26 of the whole affair is probably summed up? Proper names might put me on the track, among others that of Joam Dacosta; and if he had anything to do with this document, his name will evidently not be absent from its concluding paragraph.”
The magistrate’s reasoning was logical, and he was decidedly right in bringing all his resources to bear in the first place on the gist14 of the cryptogram as contained in its last paragraph.
Here is the paragraph, for it is necessary to again bring it before the eyes of the reader so as to show how an analyst set to work to discover its meaning.
“P h y j s l y d d q f d z x g a s g z z q q e h x g k f n d r x u j u g I o c y t d x v k s b x h h u y p o h d v y r y m h u h p u y d k j o x p h e t o z l s l e t n p m v f f o v p d p a j x h y y n o j y g g a y m e q y n f u q l n m v l y f g s u z m q I z t l b q q y u g s q e u b v n r c r e d g r u z b l r m x y u h q h p z d r r g c r o h e p q x u f I v v r p l p h o n t h v d d q f h q s n t z h h h n f e p m q k y u u e x k t o g z g k y u u m f v I j d q d p z j q s y k r p l x h x q r y m v k l o h h h o t o z v d k s p p s u v j h d.”
At the outset, Judge Jarrizuez noticed that the lines of the document were not divided either into words or phrases, and that there was a complete absence of punctuation27. This fact could but render the reading of the document more difficult.
“Let us see, however,” he said, “if there is not some assemblage of letters which appears to form a word — I mean a pronounceable word, whose number of consonants28 is in proportion to its vowels29. And at the beginning I see the word phy; further on the word gas. Halloo! ujugi. Does that mean the African town on the banks of Tanganyika? What has that got to do with all this? Further on here is the word ypo. Is it Greek, then? Close by here is rym and puy, and jox, and phetoz, and jyggay, and mv, and qruz. And before that we have got red and let. That is good! those are two English words. Then ohe — syk; then rym once more, and then the word oto.”
Judge Jarriquez let the paper drop, and thought for a few minutes.
“All the words I see in this thing seem queer!” he said. “In fact, there is nothing to give a clue to their origin. Some look like Greek, some like Dutch; some have an English twist, and some look like nothing at all! To say nothing of these series of consonants which are not wanted in any human pronunciation. Most assuredly it will not be very easy to find the key to this cryptogram.”
The magistrate’s fingers commenced to beat a tattoo30 on his desk — a kind of reveille to arouse his dormant31 faculties32.
“Let us see,” he said, “how many letters there are in the paragraph.”
He counted them, pen in hand.
“Two hundred and seventy-six!” he said. “Well, now let us try what proportion these different letters bear to each other.”
This occupied him for some time. The judge took up the document, and, with his pen in his hand, he noted33 each letter in alphabetical34 order.
In a quarter of an hour he had obtained the following table:
a = 3 times b = 4 — c = 3 — d = 16 — e = 9 — f = 10 — g = 13 — h = 23 — i = 4 — j = 8 — k = 9 — l = 9 — m = 9 — n = 9 — o = 12 — p = 16 — q = 16 — r = 12 — s = 10 — t = 8 — u = 17 — v = 13 — x = 12 — y = 19 — z = 12 —
Total . . . 276 times.
“Ah, ah!” he exclaimed. “One thing strikes me at once, and that is that in this paragraph all the letters of the alphabet are not used. That is very strange. If we take up a book and open it by chance it will be very seldom that we shall hit upon two hundred and seventy-six letters without all the signs of the alphabet figuring among them. After all, it may be chance,” and then he passed to a different train of thought. “One important point is to see if the vowels and consonants are in their normal proportion.”
And so he seized his pen, counted up the vowels, and obtained the following result:
a = 3 times e = 9 — i = 4 — o = 12 — u = 17 — y = 19 —
Total . . . 276 times.
“And thus there are in this paragraph, after we have done our subtraction35, sixty-four vowels and two hundred and twelve consonants. Good! that is the normal proportion. That is about a fifth, as in the alphabet, where there are six vowels among twenty-six letters. It is possible, therefore, that the document is written in the language of our country, and that only the signification of each letter is changed. If it has been modified in regular order, and a b is always represented by an l, and o by a v, a g by a k, an u by an r, etc., I will give up my judgeship if I do not read it. What can I do better than follow the method of that great analytical36 genius, Edgar Allan Poe?”
Judge Jarriquez herein alluded37 to a story by the great American romancer, which is a masterpiece. Who has not read the “Gold Bug38?” In this novel a cryptogram, composed of ciphers39, letters, algebraic signs, asterisks40, full-stops, and commas, is submitted to a truly mathematical analysis, and is deciphered under extraordinary conditions, which the admirers of that strange genius can never forget. On the reading of the American document depended only a treasure, while on that of this one depended a man’s life. Its solution was consequently all the more interesting.
The magistrate, who had often read and re-read his “Gold Bug,” was perfectly41 acquainted with the steps in the analysis so minutely described by Edgar Poe, and he resolved to proceed in the same way on this occasion. In doing so he was certain, as he had said, that if the value or signification of each letter remained constant, he would, sooner or later, arrive at the solution of the document.
“What did Edgar Poe do?” he repeated. “First of all he began by finding out the sign — here there are only letters, let us say the letter — which was reproduced the oftenest. I see that that is h, for it is met with twenty-three times. This enormous proportion shows, to begin with, that h does not stand for h, but, on the contrary, that it represents the letter which recurs42 most frequently in our language, for I suppose the document is written in Portuguese43. In English or French it would certainly be e, in Italian it would be i or a, in Portuguese it will be a or o. Now let us say that it signifies a or o.”
After this was done, the judge found out the letter which recurred44 most frequently after h, and so on, and he formed the following table:
h = 23 times y = 19 — u = 17 — d p q = 16 — g v = 13 — o r x z = 12 — f s = 10 — e k l m n = 9 — j t = 8 — b i = 8 — a c = 8 —
“Now the letter a only occurs thrice!” exclaimed the judge, “and it ought to occur the oftenest. Ah! that clearly proves that the meaning had been changed. And now, after a or o, what are the letters which figure oftenest in our language? Let us see,” and Judge Jarriquez, with truly remarkable45 sagacity, which denoted a very observant mind, started on this new quest. In this he was only imitating the American romancer, who, great analyst as he was, had, by simple induction46, been able to construct an alphabet corresponding to the signs of the cryptogram and by means of it to eventually read the pirate’s parchment note with ease.
The magistrate set to work in the same way, and we may affirm that he was no whit47 inferior to his illustrious master. Thanks to his previous work at logogryphs and squares, rectangular arrangements and other enigmas49, which depend only on an arbitrary disposition50 of the letters, he was already pretty strong in such mental pastimes. On this occasion he sought to establish the order in which the letters were reproduced — vowels first, consonants afterward51.
Three hours had elapsed since he began. He had before his eyes an alphabet which, if his procedure were right, would give him the right meaning of the letters in the document. He had only to successively apply the letters of his alphabet to those of his paragraph. But before making this application some slight emotion seized upon the judge. He fully4 experienced the intellectual gratification — much greater than, perhaps, would be thought — of the man who, after hours of obstinate52 endeavor, saw the impatiently sought-for sense of the logogryph coming into view.
“Now let us try,” he said; “and I shall be very much surprised if I have not got the solution of the enigma48!”
Judge Jarriquez took off his spectacles and wiped the glasses; then he put them back again and bent53 over the table. His special alphabet was in one hand, the cryptogram in the other. He commenced to write under the first line of the paragraph the true letters, which, according to him, ought to correspond exactly with each of the cryptographic letters. As with the first line so did he with the second, and the third, and the fourth, until he reached the end of the paragraph.
Oddity as he was, he did not stop to see as he wrote if the assemblage of letters made intelligible54 words. No; during the first stage his mind refused all verification of that sort. What he desired was to give himself the ecstasy55 of reading it all straight off at once.
And now he had done.
“Let us read!” he exclaimed.
And he read. Good heavens! what cacophony56! The lines he had formed with the letters of his alphabet had no more sense in them that those of the document! It was another series of letters, and that was all. They formed no word; they had no value. In short, they were just as hieroglyphic57.
“Confound the thing!” exclaimed Judge Jarriquez.
收听单词发音 |
1
contingency
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| n.意外事件，可能性 | |
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ingenuity
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| n.别出心裁；善于发明创造 | |
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retired
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| adj.隐退的，退休的，退役的 | |
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fully
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| adv.完全地，全部地，彻底地；充分地 | |
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tenor
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| n.男高音（歌手），次中音（乐器），要旨，大意 | |
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miraculously
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| ad.奇迹般地 | |
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vindicates
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| n.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的名词复数 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护v.澄清（某人/某事物）受到的责难或嫌疑( vindicate的第三人称单数 )；表明或证明（所争辩的事物）属实、正当、有效等；维护 | |
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8
unravel
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| v.弄清楚（秘密）；拆开，解开，松开 | |
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agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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confession
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| n.自白，供认，承认 | |
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innocence
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| n.无罪；天真；无害 | |
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drawn
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| v.拖，拉，拔出；adj.憔悴的，紧张的 | |
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magistrate
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| n.地方行政官，地方法官，治安官 | |
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gist
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| n.要旨；梗概 | |
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charades
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| n.伪装( charade的名词复数 )；猜字游戏 | |
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rebuses
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| n.（以画代词语，尤其是名字的）画谜，组字画( rebus的名词复数 ) | |
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justification
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| n.正当的理由；辩解的理由 | |
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analyst
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| n.分析家，化验员；心理分析学家 | |
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cryptogram
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| n.密码 | |
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solitude
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| n. 孤独; 独居,荒僻之地,幽静的地方 | |
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finesse
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| n.精密技巧，灵巧，手腕 | |
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meditation
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| n.熟虑，（尤指宗教的）默想，沉思，（pl.）冥想录 | |
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monologue
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| n.长篇大论，（戏剧等中的）独白 | |
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worthy
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| adj.(of)值得的，配得上的；有价值的 | |
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logic
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| n.逻辑(学)；逻辑性 | |
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recital
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| n.朗诵，独奏会，独唱会 | |
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punctuation
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| n.标点符号，标点法 | |
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28
consonants
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| n.辅音，子音( consonant的名词复数 )；辅音字母 | |
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vowels
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| n.元音，元音字母( vowel的名词复数 ) | |
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tattoo
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| n.纹身，(皮肤上的)刺花纹；vt.刺花纹于 | |
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dormant
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| adj.暂停活动的；休眠的；潜伏的 | |
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faculties
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| n.能力( faculty的名词复数 )；全体教职员；技巧；院 | |
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noted
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| adj.著名的，知名的 | |
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alphabetical
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| adj.字母（表）的，依字母顺序的 | |
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35
subtraction
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| n.减法，减去 | |
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analytical
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| adj.分析的；用分析法的 | |
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alluded
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| 提及，暗指( allude的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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bug
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| n.虫子；故障；窃听器；vt.纠缠；装窃听器 | |
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ciphers
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| n.密码( cipher的名词复数 )；零；不重要的人；无价值的东西 | |
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asterisks
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| n.星号，星状物( asterisk的名词复数 )v.加星号于( asterisk的第三人称单数 ) | |
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perfectly
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| adv.完美地，无可非议地，彻底地 | |
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recurs
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| 再发生，复发( recur的第三人称单数 ) | |
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Portuguese
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| n.葡萄牙人；葡萄牙语 | |
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recurred
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| 再发生，复发( recur的过去式和过去分词 )； 治愈 | |
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45
remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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induction
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| n.感应，感应现象 | |
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47
whit
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| n.一点，丝毫 | |
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enigma
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| n.谜，谜一样的人或事 | |
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enigmas
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| n.难于理解的问题、人、物、情况等，奥秘( enigma的名词复数 ) | |
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50
disposition
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| n.性情，性格；意向，倾向；排列，部署 | |
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51
afterward
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| adv.后来；以后 | |
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52
obstinate
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| adj.顽固的，倔强的，不易屈服的，较难治愈的 | |
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53
bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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54
intelligible
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| adj.可理解的，明白易懂的，清楚的 | |
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55
ecstasy
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| n.狂喜，心醉神怡，入迷 | |
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56
cacophony
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| n.刺耳的声音 | |
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57
hieroglyphic
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| n.象形文字 | |
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