paper from Roy and read the entire message.
"King James twenty six twenty one twenty four Balaklavan rendezvous
nine sure."

"What a queer message," said Henry. "What does it mean?"

"It means," said Captain Hardy, "that the Germans have done their very
best to deceive us. They not only changed their cipher, but they sent
their message in code. We have read their cipher, but we know no more
than we did before. We can never work out their code. All we can do
is to guess at the meaning. Our difficulties, instead of being ended,
are just beginning. I am more and more convinced that this message is
important."

CHAPTER XVIII

TOO LATE

The look of astonishment that appeared on every face at the reading of
the message was soon succeeded by one of bewilderment.

"How are we ever going to find out what it means?" demanded Willie. "We
can keep juggling letters around until we get them into the proper
combinations to make words out of them. But here we've got the words.
And they don't mean anything to us. And I don't see how we're ever going
to find out what they do mean. We couldn't juggle words around, too,
could we, Captain Hardy?"

"No, Willie. There is no use trying that. The spies know what the words
mean, all right enough. And nobody else does, unless he has the key to
the code. All we can do is to guess what they mean."

"It will take some tall guessing," laughed Roy. "I don't even know what
two of those words mean. Read 'em, Willie--those two long ones."

Everybody laughed. "B-A-L-A-K-L-A-V-A-N R-E-N-D-E-Z-V-O-U-S," spelled
Willie. "They've got me stopped, too. What do they mean, Captain Hardy?"

"Balaklavan evidently is an adjective referring to Balaklava. Does any
one of you remember that word? You've had it in history."

"I know," said Henry. "That's where the Light Brigade made its famous
charge in the Crimean War."

"Good," said Captain Hardy. "That's exactly right. So that word
evidently refers to a famous battle-ground. Can it be that we have
stumbled on a diplomatic message instead of one meant for these spies?
Could it be that this message has anything to do with the situation in
the Balkans, I wonder?" and Captain Hardy began to turn the matter over
in his mind.

"You didn't tell us what that other word meant," said Roy.

"Oh!" said the captain, with a smile. "That's a word of French origin
that means meeting-place. Balaklavan meeting-place, Balaklavan
meeti